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diff --git a/old/7cntr10.txt b/old/7cntr10.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5991413..0000000 --- a/old/7cntr10.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10267 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Centaur, by Algernon Blackwood -#4 in our series by Algernon Blackwood - -Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the -copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing -this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. - -This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project -Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the -header without written permission. - -Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the -eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is -important information about your specific rights and restrictions in -how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a -donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** - - -Title: The Centaur - -Author: Algernon Blackwood - -Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9964] -[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] -[This file was first posted on November 5, 2003] - -Edition: 10 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - - - - - - THE CENTAUR - - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - - 1911 - - - - -I - -"We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing -the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the -meaning of it all." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - -"... A man's vision is the great fact about him. Who cares for Carlyle's -reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's? A philosophy is the expression -of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the Universe are -but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters upon it." - ---Ibid - - -"There are certain persons who, independently of sex or comeliness, -arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The tribe is small, -but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither fortune, good -looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the stupid name good -luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality which proclaims that -they have overtaken Fate, set a harness about its neck of violence, and -hold bit and bridle in steady hands. - -"Most of us, arrested a moment by their presence to snatch the definition -their peculiarity exacts, are aware that on the heels of curiosity -follows--envy. They know the very things that we forever seek in vain. -And this diagnosis, achieved as it were _en passant_, comes near to the -truth, for the hallmark of such persons is that they have found, and -come into, their own. There is a sign upon the face and in the eyes. -Having somehow discovered the 'piece' that makes them free of the whole -amazing puzzle, they know where they belong and, therefore, whither they -are bound: more, they are definitely _en route_. The littlenesses of -existence that plague the majority pass them by. - -"For this reason, if for no other," continued O'Malley, "I count my -experience with that man as memorable beyond ordinary. 'If for no other,' -because from the very beginning there was another. Indeed, it was -probably his air of unusual bigness, massiveness rather,--head, face, -eyes, shoulders, especially back and shoulders,--that struck me first -when I caught sight of him lounging there hugely upon my steamer deck at -Marseilles, winning my instant attention before he turned and the -expression on his great face woke more--woke curiosity, interest, envy. -He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge of mild -surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less than -perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child--almost of an -animal--shone in the large brown eyes--" - -"You mean that the physical quality caught you first, then the -psychical?" I asked, keeping him to the point, for his Irish imagination -was ever apt to race away at a tangent. - -He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. "I believe that to be -the truth," he replied, his face instantly grave again. "It was the -impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition--blessed if I know -how--leading me to the other. The size of his body did not smother, as so -often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed. At the moment I -could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only this overwhelming -attraction of the man's personality caught me and I longed to make -friends. That's the way with me, as you know," he added, tossing the hair -back from his forehead impatiently,"--pretty often. First impressions. -Old man, I tell you, it was like a possession." - -"I believe you," I said. For Terence O'Malley all his life had never -understood half measures. - - - - -II - -"The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for -civilization, or is he past it, and mastering it?" - ---WHITMAN - -"We find ourselves today in the midst of a somewhat peculiar state of -society, which we call Civilization, but which even to the most -optimistic among us does not seem altogether desirable. Some of us, -indeed, are inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which the -various races of man have to pass through.... - -"While History tells us of many nations that have been attacked by it, of -many that have succumbed to it, and of some that are still in the throes -of it, we know of no single case in which a nation has fairly recovered -from and passed through it to a more normal and healthy condition. In -other words, the development of human society has never yet (that we know -of) passed beyond a certain definite and apparently final stage in the -process we call Civilization; at that stage it has always succumbed or -been arrested." - ---EDWARD CARPENTER, _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_ - - -O'Malley himself is an individuality that invites consideration from the -ruck of commonplace men. Of mingled Irish, Scotch, and English blood, the -first predominated, and the Celtic element in him was strong. A man of -vigorous health, careless of gain, a wanderer, and by his own choice -something of an outcast, he led to the end the existence of a rolling -stone. He lived from hand to mouth, never quite growing up. It seemed, -indeed, that he never could grow up in the accepted sense of the term, -for his motto was the reverse of _nil admirari_, and he found himself in -a state of perpetual astonishment at the mystery of things. He was -forever deciphering the huge horoscope of Life, yet getting no further -than the House of Wonder, on whose cusp surely he had been born. -Civilization, he loved to say, had blinded the eyes of men, filling them -with dust instead of vision. - -An ardent lover of wild outdoor life, he knew at times a high, passionate -searching for things of the spirit, when the outer world fell away like -dross and he seemed to pass into a state resembling ecstasy. Never in -cities or among his fellow men, struggling and herded, did these times -come to him, but when he was abroad with the winds and stars in desolate -places. Then, sometimes, he would be rapt away, caught up to see the -tail-end of the great procession of the gods that had come near. He -surprised Eternity in a running Moment. - -For the moods of Nature flamed through him--_in_ him--like presences, -potently evocative as the presences of persons, and with meanings equally -various: the woods with love and tenderness; the sea with reverence and -magic; plains and wide horizons with the melancholy peace and silence as -of wise and old companions; and mountains with a splendid terror due to -some want of comprehension in himself, caused probably by a spiritual -remoteness from their mood. - -The Cosmos, in a word, for him was psychical, and Nature's moods were -transcendental cosmic activities that induced in him these singular -states of exaltation and expansion. She pushed wide the gateways of his -deeper life. She entered, took possession, dipped his smaller self into -her own enormous and enveloping personality. - -He possessed a full experience, and at times a keen judgment, of modern -life; while underneath, all the time, lay the moving sea of curiously -wild primitive instincts. An insatiable longing for the wilderness was in -his blood, a craving vehement, unappeasable. Yet for something far -greater than the wilderness alone--the wilderness was merely a symbol, a -first step, indication of a way of escape. The hurry and invention of -modern life were to him a fever and a torment. He loathed the million -tricks of civilization. At the same time, being a man of some -discrimination at least, he rarely let himself go completely. Of these -wilder, simpler instincts he was afraid. They might flood all else. If he -yielded entirely, something he dreaded, without being able to define, -would happen; the structure of his being would suffer a nameless -violence, so that he would have to break with the world. These cravings -stood for that loot of the soul which he must deny himself. Complete -surrender would involve somehow a disintegration, a dissociation of -his personality that carried with it the loss of personal identity. - -When the feeling of revolt became sometimes so urgent in him that it -threatened to become unmanageable, he would go out into solitude, calling -it to heel; but this attempt to restore order, while easing his nature, -was never radical; the accumulation merely increased on the rebound; the -yearnings grew and multiplied, and the point of saturation was often -dangerously near. "Some day," his friends would say, "there'll be a -bursting of the dam." And, though their meaning might be variously -interpreted, they spoke the truth. O'Malley knew it, too. - -A man he was, in a word, of deep and ever-shifting moods, and with more -difficulty than most in recognizing the underlying self of which these -outer aspects were projections masquerading as complete personalities. - -The underlying ego that unified these projections was of the type -touched with so sure a hand in the opening pages of an inspired little -book: _The Plea of Pan_. O'Malley was useless as a citizen and knew it. -Sometimes--he was ashamed of it as well. - -Occasionally, and at the time of this particular "memorable adventure," -aged thirty, he acted as foreign correspondent; but even as such he was -the kind of newspaper man that not merely collects news, but discovers, -reveals, creates it. Wise in their generation, the editors who -commissioned him remembered when his copy came in that they were editors. -A roving commission among the tribes of the Caucasus was his assignment -at the moment, and a better man for the purpose would have been hard to -find, since he knew beauty, had a keen eye for human nature, divined what -was vital and picturesque, and had, further, the power to set it down in -brief terms born directly of his vivid emotions. - -When first I knew him he lived--nowhere, being always on the move. He -kept, however, a dingy little room near Paddington where his books and -papers accumulated, undusted but safe, and where the manuscripts of his -adventures were found when his death made me the executor of his few -belongings. The key was in his pocket, carefully ticketed with a bone -label. And this, the only evidence of practical forethought I ever -discovered in him, was proof that something in that room was deemed by -him of value--to others. It certainly was not the heterogeneous -collection of second-hand books, nor the hundreds of unlabeled -photographs and sketches. Can it have been the MSS. of stories, notes, -and episodes I found, almost carefully piled and tabulated with titles, -in a dirty kitbag of green Willesden canvas? - -Some of these he had told me (with a greater vividness than he could -command by pen); others were new; many unfinished. All were unusual, -to say the least. All, too, had obviously happened to himself at some -period of his roving career, though here and there he had disguised his -own part in them by Hoffmann's device of throwing the action into the -third person. Those told to me by word of mouth I could only feel were -true, true for himself at least. In no sense were they mere inventions, -but arose in moments of vision upon a structure of solid events. Ten -men will describe in as many different ways a snake crossing their path; -but, besides these, there exists an eleventh man who sees more than the -snake, the path, the movement. O'Malley was some such eleventh man. He -saw the thing whole, from some kind of inner bird's-eye view, while the -ten saw only limited aspects of it from various angles. He was accused -of adding details, therefore, because he had divined their presence while -still below the horizon. Before they emerged the others had already left. - -By which I mean that he saw in commonplace events the movement of greater -tides than others saw. At one remove of time or distance--a minute or a -mile--he perceived _all_. While the ten chattered volubly about the name -of the snake, he was caught beyond by the beauty of the path, the glory -of the running glide, the nature of the forces that drove, hindered, -modified. - -The others reasoned where the snake was going, its length in inches and -its speed per second, while he, ignoring such superficial details, -plunged as it were into the very nature of the creature's being. And in -this idiosyncrasy, which he shared with all persons of mystical -temperament, is exemplified a certain curious contempt for Reason that he -had. For him mere intellectuality, by which the modern world sets such -store, was a valley of dry bones. Its worship was a worship of the form. -It missed the essential inner truth because such inner truth could be -known only by being it, feeling it. The intellectual attitude of mind, in -a word, was critical, not creative, and to be unimaginative seemed to -him, therefore, the worst form of unintelligence. - -"The arid, sterile minds!" he would cry in a burst of his Celtic -enthusiasm. "Where, I ask ye, did the philosophies and sciences of the -world assist the progress of any single soul a blessed inch?" - -Any little Dreamer in his top-floor back, spinning by rushlight his -web of beauty, was greater than the finest critical intelligence that -ever lived. The one, for all his poor technique, was stammering over -something God had whispered to him, the other merely destroying thoughts -invented by the brain of man. - -And this attitude of mind, because of its interpretative effect upon -what follows, justifies mention. For to O'Malley, in some way difficult -to explain, Reason and Intellect, as such, had come to be worshipped -by men today out of all proportion to their real value. Consciousness, -focused too exclusively upon them, had exalted them out of due proportion -in the spiritual economy. To make a god of them was to make an empty and -inadequate god. Reason should be the guardian of the soul's advance, but -not the object. Its function was that of a great sandpaper which should -clear the way of excrescences, but its worship was to allow a detail to -assume a disproportionate importance. - -Not that he was fool enough to despise Reason in what he called its -proper place, but that he was "wise" enough--not that he was -"intellectual" enough!--to recognize its futility in measuring the things -of the soul. For him there existed a more fundamental understanding than -Reason, and it was, apparently, an inner and natural understanding. - -"The greatest Teacher we ever had," I once heard him say, "ignored the -intellect, and who, will ye tell me, can by searching find out God? And -yet what else is worth finding out...? Isn't it only by becoming as a -little child--a child that feels and never reasons things--that any -one shall enter the kingdom...? Where will the giant intellects be before -the Great White Throne when a simple man with the heart of a child will -top the lot of 'em?" - -"Nature, I'm convinced," he said another time, though he said it with -puzzled eyes and a mind obviously groping, "is our next step. Reason -has done its best for centuries, and gets no further. It _can_ get no -further, for it can do nothing for the inner life which is the sole -reality. We must return to Nature and a purified intuition, to a greater -reliance upon what is now subconscious, back to that sweet, grave -guidance of the Universe which we've discarded with the primitive -state--a spiritual intelligence, really, divorced from mere -intellectuality." - -And by Nature he did not mean a return to savagery. There was no idea -of going backwards in his wild words. Rather he looked forwards, in some -way hard to understand, to a state when Man, with the best results of -Reason in his pocket, might return to the instinctive life--to feeling -_with_--to the sinking down of the modern, exaggerated intellectual -personality into its rightful place as guide instead of leader. He called -it a Return to Nature, but what he meant, I always felt, was back to a -sense of kinship with the Universe which men, through worshipping the -intellect alone, had lost. Men today prided themselves upon their -superiority to Nature as beings separate and apart. O'Malley sought, on -the contrary, a development, if not a revival, of some faultless -instinct, due to kinship with her, which--to take extremes--shall direct -alike the animal and the inspired man, guiding the wild bee and the -homing pigeon, and--the soul toward its God. - -This clue, as he called it, crystallized so neatly and so conclusively -his own mental struggles, that he had called a halt, as it were, to his -own intellectual development.... The name and family of the snake, hence, -meant to him the least important things about it. He caught, wildly yet -consistently, at the psychic links that bound the snake and Nature and -himself together with all creation. Troops of adventurous thoughts had -all his life "gone west" to colonize this land of speculative dream. True -to his idea, he "thought" with his emotions as much as with his brain, -and in the broken record of the adventure that this book relates, this -strange passion of his temperament remains the vital clue. For it -happened _in_, as well as to, himself. His Being could include the Earth -by feeling with her, whereas his intellect could merely criticize, and so -belittle, the details of such inclusion. - -Many a time, while he stretched credulity to a point, I have heard him -apologize in some such way for his method. It was the splendor of his -belief that made the thing so convincing in the telling, for later when -I found the same tale written down it seemed somehow to have failed -of an equal achievement. The truth was that no one language would -convey the extraordinary freight that was carried so easily by his -instinctive choice of gestures, tone, and glance. With him these were -consummately interpretative. - - * * * * * - -Before the age of thirty he had written and published a volume or two of -curious tales, all dealing with extensions of the personality, a subject -that interested him deeply, and one he understood because he drew the -material largely from himself. Psychology he simply devoured, even in its -most fantastic and speculative forms; and though perhaps his vision was -incalculably greater than his power of technique, these strange books had -a certain value and formed a genuine contribution to the thought on that -particular subject. In England naturally they fell dead, but their -translation into German brought him a wider and more intelligent circle. -The common public unfamiliar with Sally Beauchamp No. 4, with Helene -Smith, or with Dr. Hanna, found in these studies of divided personality, -and these singular extensions of the human consciousness, only -extravagance and imagination run to wildness. Yet, none the less, the -substratum of truth upon which O'Malley had built them, lay actually -within his own personal experience. The books had brought him here and -there acquaintances of value; and among these latter was a German doctor, -Heinrich Stahl. With Dr. Stahl the Irishman crossed swords through months -of somewhat irregular correspondence, until at length the two had met on -board a steamer where the German held the position of ship's doctor. The -acquaintanceship had grown into something approaching friendship, -although the two men stood apparently at the opposite poles of thought. -From time to time they still met. - -In appearance there was nothing unusual about O'Malley, unless it was the -contrast of the light blue eyes with the dark hair. Never, I think, did I -see him in anything but that old grey flannel suit, with the low collar -and shabby glistening tie. He was of medium height, delicately built, his -hands more like a girl's than a man's. In towns he shaved and looked -fairly presentable, but once upon his travels he grew beard and moustache -and would forget for weeks to have his hair cut, so that it fell in a -tangle over forehead and eyes. - -His manner changed with the abruptness of his moods. Sometimes active and -alert, at others for days together he would become absent, dreamy, -absorbed, half oblivious of the outer world, his movements and actions -dictated by subconscious instinct rather than regulated by volition. -And one cause of that loneliness of spirit which was undoubtedly a chief -pain in life to him, was the fact that ordinary folk were puzzled how to -take him, or to know which of these many extreme moods was the man -himself. Uncomfortable, unsatisfactory, elusive, not to be counted upon, -they deemed him: and from their point of view they were undoubtedly -right. The sympathy and above all the companionship he needed, genuinely -craved too, were thus denied to him by the faults of his own temperament. -With women his intercourse was of the slightest; in a sense he did not -know the need of them much. For one thing, the feminine element in his -own nature was too strong, and he was not conscious, as most men are, of -the great gap of incompleteness women may so exquisitely fill; and, for -another, its obvious corollary perhaps, when they did come into his life, -they gave him more than he could comfortably deal with. They offered him -more than he needed. - -In this way, while he perhaps had never fallen in love, as the saying has -it, he had certainly known that high splendor of devotion which means the -losing of oneself in others, that exalted love which seeks not any reward -of possession because it is itself so utterly possessed. He was pure, -too; in the sense that it never occurred to him to be otherwise. - -Chief cause of his loneliness--so far as I could judge his complex -personality at all--seemed that he never found a sympathetic, truly -understanding ear for those deeply primitive longings that fairly ravaged -his heart. And this very isolation made him often afraid; it proved that -the rest of the world, the sane majority at any rate, said No to them. I, -who loved him and listened, yet never quite apprehended his full meaning. -Far more than the common Call of the Wild, it was. He yearned, not so -much for a world savage, uncivilized, as for a perfectly natural one that -had never known, perhaps never needed civilization--a state of freedom in -a life unstained. - -He never wholly understood, I think, the reason why he found himself in -such stern protest against the modern state of things, why people -produced in him a state of death so that he turned from men to Nature--to -find life. The things the nations exclusively troubled themselves about -all seemed to him so obviously vain and worthless, and, though he never -even in his highest moments felt the claims of sainthood, it puzzled and -perplexed him deeply that the conquest over Nature in all its -multifarious forms today should seem to them so infinitely more important -than the conquest over self. What the world with common consent called -Reality, seemed ever to him the most crude and obvious, the most -transient, the most blatant un-Reality. His love of Nature was more than -the mere joy of tumultuous pagan instincts. It was, in the kind of simple -life he craved, the first step toward the recovery of noble, dignified, -enfranchised living. In the denial of all this external flummery he -hated, it would leave the soul disengaged and free, able to turn her -activities within for spiritual development. Civilization now suffocated, -smothered, killed the soul. Being in the hopeless minority, he felt he -must be somewhere wrong, at fault, deceived. For all men, from a -statesman to an engine-driver, agreed that the accumulation of external -possessions had value, and that the importance of material gain was -real.... Yet, for himself, he always turned for comfort to the Earth. -The wise and wonderful Earth opened her mind and her deep heart to him -in a way few other men seemed to know. Through Nature he could move -blind-folded along, yet find his way to strength and sympathy. A noble, -gracious life stirred in him then which the pettier human world denied. -He often would compare the thin help or fellowship he gained from -ordinary social intercourse, or from what had seemed at the time quite a -successful gathering of his kind, with the power he gained from a visit -to the woods or mountains. The former, as a rule, evaporated in a single -day; the other stayed, with ever growing power, to bless whole weeks and -months. - -And hence it was, whether owing to the truth or ignorance of his -attitude, that a sense of bleak loneliness spread through all his life, -and more and more he turned from men to Nature. - -Moreover, foolish as it must sound, I was sometimes aware that deep down -in him hid some nameless, indefinable quality that proclaimed him fitted -to live in conditions that had never known the restraints of modern -conventions--a very different thing to doing without them once known. A -kind of childlike, transcendental innocence he certainly possessed, -_naif_, most engaging, and--utterly impossible. It showed itself -indirectly, I think, in this distress under modern conditions. The -multifarious apparatus of the spirit of Today oppressed him; its rush and -luxury and artificiality harassed him beyond belief. The terror of cities -ran in his very blood. - -When I describe him as something of an outcast, therefore, it will be -seen that he was such both voluntarily and involuntarily. - -"What the world has gained by brains is simply nothing to what it has -lost by them--" - -"A dream, my dear fellow, a mere dream," I stopped him, yet with -sympathy because I knew he found relief this way. "Your constructive -imagination is too active." - -"By Gad," he replied warmly, "but there is a place somewhere, or a state -of mind--the same thing--where it's more than a dream. And, what's more, -bless your stodgy old heart, some day I'll get there." - -"Not in England, at any rate," I suggested. - -He stared at me a moment, his eyes suddenly charged with dreams. Then, -characteristically, he snorted. He flung his hand out with a gesture that -should push the present further from him. - -"I've always liked the Eastern theory--old theory anyhow if not -Eastern--that intense yearnings end by creating a place where they are -fulfilled--" - -"Subjectively--" - -"Of course; objectively means incompletely. I mean a Heaven built up by -desire and intense longing all your life. Your own thought makes it. -Living idea, that!" - -"Another dream, Terence O'Malley," I laughed, "but beautiful and -seductive." - -To argue bored him. He loved to state his matter, fill it with detail, -blow the heated breath of life into it, and then leave it. Argument -belittled without clarifying; criticism destroyed, sealing up the sources -of life. Any fool could argue; the small, denying minds were always -critics. - -"A dream, but a damned foine one, let me tell you," he exclaimed, -recovering his brogue in his enthusiasm. He glared at me a second, then -burst out laughing. "Tis better to have dhreamed and waked," he added, -"than never to have dhreamed at all." - -And then he poured out O'Shaughnessy's passionate ode to the Dreamers of -the world: - -We are the music-makers, -And we are the dreamers of dreams, -Wandering by lone sea-breakers, -And sitting by desolate streams; -World-losers and world-forsakers, -On whom the pale moon gleams; -Yet we are the movers and shakers -Of the world forever, it seems. - -With wonderful deathless ditties -We build up the world's great cities, -And out of a fabulous story -We fashion an empire's glory; -One man with a dream, at pleasure, -Shall go forth and conquer a crown; -And three with a new song's measure -Can trample an empire down. - -We, in the ages lying -In the buried past of the earth, -Built Nineveh with our sighing, -And Babel itself with our mirth; -And o'erthrew them with prophesying -To the old of the new world's worth; -For each age is a dream that is dying, -Or one that is coming to birth. - -For this passion for some simple old-world innocence and beauty lay in -his soul like a lust--self-feeding and voracious. - - - - -III - -"Lonely! Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?" - ---THOREAU - - -March had passed shouting away, and April was whispering deliciously -among her scented showers when O'Malley went on board the coasting -steamer at Marseilles for the Levant and the Black Sea. The _mistral_ -made the land unbearable, but herds of white horses ran galloping -over the bay beneath a sky of childhood's blue. The ship started -punctually--he came on board as usual with a bare minute's margin--and -from his rapid survey of the thronged upper deck, it seems, he singled -out on the instant this man and boy, wondering first vaguely at their -uncommon air of bulk, secondly at the absence of detail which should -confirm it. They appeared so much bigger than they actually were. The -laughter, rising in his heart, however, did not get as far as his lips. - -For this appearance of massive bulk, and of shoulders comely yet almost -humped, was not borne out by a direct inspection. It was a mental -impression. The man, though broad and well-proportioned, with heavy -back and neck and uncommonly sturdy torso, was in no sense monstrous. -It was upon the corner of the eye that the bulk and hugeness dawned, a -false report that melted under direct vision. O'Malley took him in with -attention merging in respect, searching in vain for the detail of back -and limbs and neck that suggested so curiously the sense of the -gigantic. The boy beside him, obviously son, possessed the same elusive -attributes--felt yet never positively seen. - -Passing down to his cabin, wondering vaguely to what nationality they -might belong, he was immediately behind them, elbowing French and German -tourists, when the father abruptly turned and faced him. Their gaze met. -O'Malley started. - -"Whew...!" ran some silent expression like fire through his brain. - -Out of a massive visage, placid for all its ruggedness, shone eyes -large and timid as those of an animal or child bewildered among so many -people. There was an expression in them not so much cowed or dismayed as -"un-refuged"--the eyes of the hunted creature. That, at least, was the -first thing they betrayed; for the same second the quick-blooded Celt -caught another look: the look of a hunted creature that at last knows -shelter and has found it. The first expression had emerged, then -withdrawn again swiftly like an animal into its hole where safety lay. -Before disappearing, it had flashed a wireless message of warning, of -welcome, of explanation--he knew not what term to use--to another of its -own kind, to _himself_. - -O'Malley, utterly arrested, stood and stared. He would have spoken, for -the invitation seemed obvious enough, but there came an odd catch in his -breath, and words failed altogether. The boy, peering at him sideways, -clung to his great parent's side. For perhaps ten seconds there was this -interchange of staring, intimate staring, between the three of them ... -and then the Irishman, confused, more than a little agitated, ended the -silent introduction with an imperceptible bow and passed on slowly, -knocking absent-mindedly through the crowd, down to his cabin on the -lower deck. - -In his heart, deep down, stirred an indescribable sympathy with something -he divined in these two that was akin to himself, but that as yet he -could not name. On the surface he felt an emotion he knew not whether to -call uneasiness or surprise, but crowding past it, half smothering it, -rose this other more profound emotion. Something enormously winning in -the atmosphere of father and son called to him in the silence: it was -significant, oddly buried; not yet had it emerged enough to be confessed -and labeled. But each had recognized it in the other. Each knew. Each -waited. And it was extraordinarily disturbing. - -Before unpacking, he sat for a long time on his berth, thinking....trying -in vain to catch through a thunder of surprising emotions the word that -might bring explanation. That strange impression of giant bulk, -unsupported by actual measurements; that look of startled security -seeking shelter; that other look of being sure, of knowing where to go -and being actually _en route_,--all these, he felt, grew from the same -hidden cause whereof they were symptoms. It was this hidden thing in the -man that had reached out invisibly and fired his own consciousness as -their gaze met in that brief instant. And it had disturbed him so -profoundly because the very same lost thing lay buried in himself. The -man knew, whereas he anticipated merely--as yet. What was it? Why came -there with it both happiness and fear? - -The word that kept chasing itself in a circle like a kitten after its own -tail, yet bringing no explanation, was Loneliness--a loneliness that must -be whispered. For it was loneliness on the verge of finding relief. And -if proclaimed too loud, there might come those who would interfere and -prevent relief. The man, and the boy too for that matter, were escaping. -They had found the way back, were ready and eager, moreover, to show it -to other prisoners. - -And this was as near as O'Malley could come to explanation. He began to -understand dimly--and with an extraordinary excitement of happiness. - -"Well--and the bigness?" I asked, seizing on a practical point after -listening to his dreaming, "what do you make of that? It must have had -some definite cause surely?" - -He turned and fixed his light blue eyes on mine as we paced beside the -Serpentine that summer afternoon when I first heard the story told. -He was half grave, half laughing. - -"The size, the bulk, the bigness," he replied, "must have been in -reality the expression of some mental quality that reached me -psychically, producing its effect directly on my mind and not upon the -eyes at all." In telling the story he used a simile omitted in the -writing of it, because his sense of humor perceived that no possible turn -of phrase could save it from grotesqueness when actually it was far from -grotesque--extraordinarily pathetic rather: "As though," he said, "the -great back and shoulders carried beneath the loose black cape--humps, -projections at least; but projections not ugly in themselves, comely even -in some perfectly natural way, that lent to his person this idea of giant -size. His body, though large, was normal so far as its proportions were -concerned. In his spirit, though, there hid another shape. An aspect of -that other shape somehow reached my mind." - -Then, seeing that I found nothing at the moment to reply, he added: - -"As an angry man you may picture to yourself as red, or a jealous -man as green!" He laughed aloud. "D'ye see, now? It was not really a -physical business at all!" - - - - -IV - -"We think with only a small part of the past, but it is with our -entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, -will, and act." - ---HENRI BERGSON - - -The balance of his fellow-passengers were not distinguished. There was a -company of French tourists gong to Naples, and another lot of Germans -bound for Athens, some business folk for Smyrna and Constantinople, and a -sprinkling of Russians going home via Odessa, Batoum, or Novorossisk. - -In his own stateroom, occupying the upper berth, was a little -round-bodied, red-faced Canadian drummer, "traveling" in -harvest-machines. The name of the machine, its price, and the terms of -purchase were his universe; he knew them in several languages; beyond -them, nothing. He was good-natured, conceding anything to save trouble. -"D'ye mind the light for a bit while I read in bed?" asked O'Malley. -"Don't mind anything much," was the cheery reply. "I'm not particular; -I'm easy-going and you needn't bother." He turned over to sleep. "Old -traveler," he added, his voice muffled by sheets and blankets, "and take -things as they come." And the only objection O'Malley found in him was -that he took things as they came to the point of not taking baths at all, -and not even taking all his garments off when he went to bed. - -The Captain, whom he knew from previous voyages, a genial, rough-voiced -sailor from Sassnitz, chided him for so nearly missing the boat--"as -usual." - -"You're too late for a seat at my taple," he said with his laughing -growl; "it's a pidy. You should have led me know py telegram, and I then -kepd your place. Now you find room at the doctor's taple howefer -berhaps...!" - -"Steamer's very crowded this time," O'Malley replied, shrugging his -shoulders; "but you'll let me come up sometimes for a smoke with you -on the bridge?" - -"Of course, of course." - -"Anybody interesting on board?" he asked after a moment's pause. - -The jolly Captain laughed. "'Pout the zame as usual, you know. Nothing to -stop ze ship! Ask ze doctor; he knows zooner than me. But, anyway, the -nice ones, they get zeazick always and dizappear. Going Trebizond this -time?" he added. - -"No; Batoum." - -"Ach! Oil?" - -"Caucasus generally--up in the mountains a bit." - -"God blenty veapons then, I hope. They shoot you for two pfennig up -there!" And he was off with his hearty deep laugh and rather ponderous -briskness toward the bridge. - -Thus O'Malley found himself placed for meals at the right hand of -Dr. Stahl; opposite him, on the doctor's left, a talkative Moscow -fur-merchant who, having come to definite conclusions of his own about -things n general, was persuaded the rest of the world must share them, -and who delivered verbose commonplaces with a kind of pontifical -utterance sometimes amusing, but usually boring; on his right a -gentle-eyed, brown-bearded Armenian priest from the Venice monastery that -had sheltered Byron, a man who ate everything except soup with his knife, -yet with a daintiness that made one marvel, and with hands so graceful -they might almost have replaced the knife without off offence. Beyond the -priest sat the rotund Canadian drummer. He kept silence, watched the -dishes carefully lest anything should escape him, and--ate. Lower down on -the opposite side, one or two nondescripts between, sat the big, blond, -bearded stranger with his son. Diagonally across from himself and the -doctor, they were in full view. - -O'Malley talked to all and sundry whom his voice could reach, being -easily forthcoming to people whom he was not likely to see again. But -he was particularly pleased to find himself next to the ship's doctor, -Dr. Heinrich Stahl, for the man both attracted and antagonized him, and -they had crossed swords pleasantly on more voyages than one. There -was a fundamental contradiction in his character due--O'Malley -divined--to the fact that his experiences did not tally as he wished them -to do with his beliefs, or vice versa. Affecting to believe in nothing, -he occasionally dropped remarks that betrayed a belief in all kinds of -things, unorthodox things. Then, having led the Irishman into confessions -of his own fairy faith, he would abruptly rule the whole subject out of -order with some cynical phrase that closed discussion. In this sarcastic -attitude O'Malley detected a pose assumed for his own protection. "No man -of sense can possibly accept such a thing; it is incredible and foolish." -Yet, the biting way he said the words betrayed him; the very thing his -reason rejected, his soul believed.... - -These vivid impressions the Irishman had of people, one wonders how -accurate they were! In this case, perhaps, he was not far from the -truth. That a man with Dr. Stahl's knowledge and ability could be -content to hide his light under the bushel of a mere _Schiffsarzt_ -required explanation. His own explanation was that he wanted leisure for -thinking and writing. Bald-headed, slovenly, prematurely old, his beard -stained with tobacco and snuff, under-sized, scientific in the -imaginative sense that made him speculative beyond mere formulae, his was -an individuality that inspired a respect one could never quite account -for. He had keen dark eyes that twinkled, sometimes mockingly, sometimes, -if the word may be allowed, bitterly, yet often too with a good-humored -amusement which sympathy with human weaknesses could alone have -caused. A warm heart he certainly had, as more than one forlorn -passenger could testify. - -Conversation at their table was slow at first. It began at the lower end -where the French tourists chattered briskly over the soup, then crept -upwards like a slow fire o'erleaping various individuals who would not -catch. For instance, it passed the harvest-machine man; it passed the -nondescripts; it also passed the big light-haired stranger and his son. - -At the table behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the -Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side -Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found -it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to fragments of -the talk O'Malley found that his own eyes kept wandering down the -table--diagonally across--to the two strangers. Once or twice he -intercepted the doctor's glance traveling in the same direction, and on -these occasions it was on the tip of his tongue to make a remark about -them, or to ask a question. Yet the words did not come. Dr. Stahl, he -felt, knew a similar hesitation. Each, wanting to speak, yet kept -silence, waiting for the other to break the ice. - -"This _mistral_ is tiresome," observed the doctor, as the tide of talk -flowed up to his end and made a remark necessary. "It tries the nerves -of some." He glanced at O'Malley, but it was the fur-merchant who -replied, spreading a be-ringed hand over his plate to feel the warmth. - -"I know it well," he said pompously in a tone of finality; "it lasts -three, six, or nine days. But once across the Golfe de Lyons we shall be -free of it." - -"You think so? Ah, I am glad," ventured the priest with a timid smile -while he adroitly balanced meat and bullet-like green peas upon his -knife-blade. Tone, smile, and gesture were so gentle that the use of -steel in any form seemed incongruous. - -The voice of the fur-merchant came in domineeringly. - -"Of course. I have made this trip so often, I _know_. St. Petersburg to -Paris, a few weeks on the Riviera, then back by Constantinople and the -Crimea. It is nothing. I remember last year--" He pushed a large pearl -pin more deeply into his speckled tie and began a story that proved -chiefly how luxuriously he traveled. His eyes tried to draw the whole -end of the table into his circle, but while the Armenian listened -politely, with smiles and bows, Dr. Stahl turned to the Irishman again. -It Vas the year of Halley's comet and he began talking interestingly -about it. - -"... Three o'clock in the morning--any morning, yes--is the best time," -the doctor concluded, "and I'll have you called. You must see it through -my telescope. End of this week, say, after we leave Catania and turn -eastwards..." - -And at this instant, following a roar of laughter from the Captain's -table, came one of those abrupt pauses that sometimes catch an entire -room at once. All voices hushed. Even the merchant, setting down his -champagne glass, fell silent. One heard only the beating of the steamer's -screw, the rush of water below the port-holes, the soft scuffle of the -stewards' feet. The conclusion of the doctor's inconsiderable sentence -was sharply audible all over the room-- - -"... crossing the Ionian Sea toward the Isles of Greece." - -It rang across the pause, and at the same moment O'Malley caught the eyes -of the big stranger lifted suddenly and fixed upon the speaker's face as -though the words had summoned him. - -They shifted the same instant to his own, then dropped again to his -plate. Again the clatter of conversation drowned the room as before; the -merchant resumed his self-description in terms of gold; the doctor -discussed the gases of the comet's tail. But the swift-blooded Irishman -felt himself caught away strangely and suddenly into another world. -Out of the abyss of the subconscious there rose a gesture prophetic and -immense. The trivial phrase and that intercepted look opened a great -door of wonder in his heart. In a second he grew "absent-minded." Or, -rather, something touched a button and the whole machinery of his -personality shifted round noiselessly and instantaneously, presenting an -immediate new facet to the world. His normal, puny self-consciousness -slipped a moment into the majestic calm of some far larger state that -the stranger also knew. The Universe lies in every human heart, and he -plunged into that archetypal world that stands so close behind all -sensible appearances. He could neither explain nor attempt to explain, -but he sailed away into some giant swimming mood of beauty wherein -steamer, passengers, talk, faded utterly, the stranger and his son -remaining alone real and vital. He had seen; he could never forget. -Chance prepared the setting, but immense powers had rushed in and availed -themselves of it. Something deeply buried had flamed from the stranger's -eyes and beckoned to him. The fire ran from the big man to himself and -was gone. - -"The Isles of Greece--" The words were simple enough, yet it seemed to -O'Malley that the look they summoned to the stranger's eyes ensouled -them, transfiguring them with the significance of vital clues. They -touched the fringe of a mystery, magnificent and remote--some -transcendent psychical drama in the 'life of this man whose "bigness" -and whose "loneliness that must be whispered" were also in their way -other vital clues. Moreover, remembering his first sight of these two -upon the upper deck a few hours before, he understood that his own -spirit, by virtue of its peculiar and primitive yearnings, was involved -in the same mystery and included in the same hidden passion. - -The little incident illustrates admirably O'Malley's idiosyncrasy of -"seeing whole." In a lightning flash his inner sense had associated the -words and the glance, divining that the one had caused the other. That -pause provided the opportunity.... If Imagination, then it was creative -imagination; if true, it was assuredly spiritual insight of a rare -quality. - -He became aware that the twinkling eyes of his neighbor were observing -him keenly. For some moments evidently he had been absent-mindedly -staring down the table. He turned quickly and looked at the doctor -with frankness. This time it was impossible to avoid speech of some -kind. - -"Following those lights that do mislead the morn?" asked Dr. Stahl -slyly. "Your thoughts have been traveling. You've heard none of my last -remarks!" - -Under the clamor of the merchant's voice O'Malley replied in a lowered -tone: - -"I was watching those two half-way down the table opposite. They interest -you as well, I see." It was not a challenge exactly; if the tone was -aggressive, it was merely that he felt the subject was one on which they -would differ, and he scented an approaching discussion. The doctor's -reply, indicating agreement, surprised him a good deal. - -"They do; they interest me greatly." There was no trace of fight in the -voice. "That should cause _you_ no surprise." - -"Me--they simply fascinate," said O'Malley, always easily drawn. "What is -it? What do you see about them that is unusual? Do you, too, see them -'big'?" The doctor did not answer at once, and O'Malley added, "The -father's a tremendous fellow, but it's not that--" - -"Partly, though," said the other, "partly, I think." - -"What else, then?" The fur-merchant, still talking, prevented their -being overheard. "What is it marks them off so from the rest?" - -"Of all people _you_ should see," smiled the doctor quietly. "If a man -of your imagination sees nothing, what shall a poor exact mind like -myself see?" He eyed him keenly a moment. "You really mean that you -detect nothing?" - -"A certain distinction, yes; a certain aloofness from others. Isolated, -they seem in a way; rather a splendid isolation I should call it--" - -And then he stopped abruptly. It was most curious, but he was aware -that unwittingly in this way he had stumbled upon the truth, aware at -the same time that he resented discussing it with his companion--because -it meant at the same time discussing himself or something in himself he -wished to hide. His entire mood shifted again with completeness and -rapidity. He could not help it. It seemed suddenly as though he had been -telling the doctor secrets about himself, secrets moreover he would not -treat sympathetically. The doctor had been "at him," so to speak, -searching the depths of him with a probing acuteness the casual language -had disguised. - -"What are they, do you suppose: Finns, Russians, Norwegians, or what?" -the doctor asked. And the other replied briefly that he guessed they -might be Russians perhaps, South Russians. His tone was different. He -wished to avoid further discussion. At the first opportunity he neatly -changed the conversation. - -It was curious, the way proof came to him. Something in himself, wild as -the desert, something to do with that love of primitive life he discussed -only with the few who were intimately sympathetic toward it, this -something in his soul was so akin to a similar passion in these -strangers that to talk of it was to betray himself as well as them. - -Further, he resented Dr. Stahl's interest in them, because he felt it was -critical and scientific. Not far behind hid the analysis that would lay -them bare, leading to their destruction. A profound instinctive sense of -self-preservation had been stirred within him. - -Already, mysteriously guided by secret affinities, he had ranged himself -on the side of the strangers. - - - - -V - -"Mythology contains the history of the archetypal world. It comprehends -Past, Present, and Future." - ---NOVALIS, _Flower Pollen, Translated by U.C.B. - - -In this way there came between these two the slight barrier of a -forbidden subject that grew because neither destroyed it. O'Malley had -erected it; Dr. Stahl respected it. Neither referred again for a time to -the big Russian and his son. - -In his written account O'Malley, who was certainly no constructive -literary craftsman, left out apparently countless little confirmatory -details. By word of mouth he made me feel at once that this mystery -existed, however; and to weld the two together is a difficult task. There -nevertheless was this something about the Russian and his boy that -excited deep curiosity, accompanied by an aversion on the part of the -other passengers that isolated them; also, there was this competition on -the part of the two friends to solve it, from opposing motives. - -Had either of the strangers fallen seasick, the advantage would have -been easily with Dr. Stahl--professionally, but since they remained well, -and the doctor was in constant demand by the other passengers, it was -the Irishman who won the first move and came to close quarters by making -a personal acquaintance. His strong desire helped matters of course; for -he noticed with indignation that these two, quiet and inoffensive as they -were and with no salient cause of offence, were yet rejected by the main -body of passengers. They seemed to possess a quality that somehow -insulated them from approach, sending them effectually "to Coventry," and -in a small steamer where the travelers settle down into a kind of big -family life, this isolation was unpleasantly noticeable. - -It stood out in numerous little details that only a keen observer closely -watching could have taken into account. Small advances, travelers' -courtesies, and the like that ordinarily should have led to conversation, -in their case led to nothing. The other passengers invariably moved away -after a few moments, politely excusing themselves, as it were, from -further intercourse. And although at first the sight of this stirred in -him an instinct of revolt that was almost anger, he soon felt that the -couple not merely failed to invite, but even emanated some definite -atmosphere that repelled. And each time he witnessed these little scenes, -there grew more strongly in him the original picture he had formed of -them as beings rejected and alone, hunted by humanity as a whole, seeking -escape from loneliness into a place of refuge that they knew of, -definitely at last _en route_. - -Only an imaginative mind, thus concentrated upon them, could have -divined all this; yet to O'Malley it seemed plain as the day. With the -certitude, moreover, came the feeling, ever stronger, that the refuge -they sought would prove to be also the refuge he himself sought, the -difference being that whereas they knew, he still hesitated. - -Yet, in spite of this secret sympathy, imagined or discovered, he found -it no easy matter to approach the big man for speech. For a day and a -half he merely watched; attraction so strong excited caution; he paused, -waiting. His attention, however, was so keen that he seemed always to -know where they were and what they were doing. By instinct he was -aware in what part of the ship they would be found--for the most part -leaning over the rail alone in the bows, staring down at the churned -water together by the screws, pacing the after-deck in the dusk or early -morning when no one was about, or hidden away in some corner of the -upper deck, side by side, gazing at sea and sky. Their method of walking, -too, made it easy to single them out from the rest--a free, swaying -movement of the limbs, a swing of the shoulders, a gait that was -lumbering, almost clumsy, half defiant, yet at the same time graceful, -and curiously rapid. The body moved along swiftly for all its air of -blundering--a motion which was a counterpart of that elusive appearance -of great bulk, and equally difficult of exact determination. An air -went with them of being ridiculously confined by the narrow little decks. - -Thus it was that Genoa had been made and the ship was already half -way on to Naples before the opportunity for closer acquaintance presented -itself. Rather, O'Malley, unable longer to resist, forced it. It -seemed, too, inevitable as sunrise. - -Rain had followed the _mistral_ and the sea was rough. A rich land-taste -came about the ship like the smell of wet oaks when wind sweeps their -leaves after a sousing shower. In the hour before dinner, the decks -slippery with moisture, only one or two wrapped-up passengers in -deck-chairs below the awning, O'Malley, following a sure inner lead, -came out of the stuffy smoking-room into the air. It was already dark -and the drive of mist-like rain somewhat obscured his vision after the -glare. Only for a moment though--for almost the first thing he saw -was the Russian and his boy moving in front of him toward the aft -compasses. Like a single figure, huge and shadowy, they passed into the -darkness beyond with a speed that seemed as usual out of proportion -to their actual stride. They lumbered rapidly away. O'Malley caught that -final swing of the man's great shoulders as they disappeared, and, -leaving the covered deck, he made straight after them. And though neither -gave any sign that they had seen him, he felt that they were aware of his -coming--and even invited him. - -As he drew close a roll of the vessel brought them almost into each -other's arms, and the boy, half hidden beneath his parent's flowing -cloak, looked up at once and smiled. The saloon light fell dimly upon -his face. The Irishman saw that friendly smile of welcome, and lurched -forward with the roll of the deck. They brought up against the bulwarks, -and the big man put out an arm to steady him. They all three laughed -together. At close quarters, as usual again, the impression of bulk had -disappeared. - -And then, at first, utterly unlike real life, they said--nothing. The -boy moved round and stood close to his side so that he found himself -placed between them, all three leaning forward over the rails watching -the phosphorescence of the foam-streaked Mediterranean. - -Dusk lay over the sea; the shores of Italy not near enough to be visible; -the mist, the hour, the loneliness of the deserted decks, and something -else that was nameless, shut them in, these three, in a little world of -their own. A sentence or two rose in O'Malley's mind, but without finding -utterance, for he felt that no spoken words were necessary. He was -accepted without more ado. A deep natural sympathy existed between -them, recognized intuitively from that moment of first mutual inspection -at Marseilles. It was instinctive, almost as with animals. The action -of the boy in coming round to his side, unhindered by the father, was -the symbol of utter confidence and welcome. - -There came, then, one of those splendid and significant moments that -occasionally, for some, burst into life, flooding all barriers, breaking -down as with a flaming light the thousand erections of shadow that close -one in. Something imprisoned in himself swept outwards, rising like a -wave, bringing an expansion of life that "explained." It vanished, of -course, instantly again, but not before he had caught a flying remnant -that lit the broken puzzles of his heart and left things clearer. Before -thought, and therefore words, could overtake, it was gone; but there -remained at least this glimpse. The fire had flashed a light down -subterranean passages of his being and made visible for a passing second -some clue to his buried primitive yearnings. He partly understood. - -Standing there between these two this thing came over him with a -degree of intelligibility scarcely captured by his words. The man's -qualities--his quietness, peace, slowness, silence--betrayed somehow that -his inner life dwelt in a region vast and simple, shaping even his -exterior presentment with its own huge characteristics, a region wherein -the distress of the modern world's vulgar, futile strife could not -exist--more, could never _have_ existed. The Irishman, who had never -realized exactly why the life of Today to him was dreadful, now -understood it in the presence of this simple being with his atmosphere of -stately power. He was like a child, but a child of some pre-existence -utterly primitive and utterly forgotten; of no particular age, but of -some state that antedates all ages; simple in some noble, concentrated -sense that was prodigious, almost terrific. To stand thus beside him was -to stand beside a mighty silent fire, steadily glowing, a fire that fed -all lesser flames, because itself close to the central source of fire. He -felt warmed, lighted, vivified--made whole. The presence of this stranger -took him at a single gulp, as it were, straight into Nature--a Nature -that was alive. The man was part of her. Never before had he stood so -close and intimate. Cities and civilization fled away like transient -dreams, ashamed. The sun and moon and stars moved up and touched him. - -This word of lightning explanation, at least, came to him as he breathed -the other's atmosphere and presence. The region where this man's spirit -fed was at the center, whereas today men were active with a scattered, -superficial cleverness, at the periphery. He even understood that his -giant gait and movements were small outer evidences of this inner fact, -wholly in keeping. That blundering stupidity, half glorious, half -pathetic, with which he moved among his fellows was a physical -expression of this psychic fact that his spirit had never learned the -skilful tricks taught by civilization to lesser men. It was, in a way, -awe-inspiring, for he was now at last driving back full speed for his own -region and--escape. - -O'Malley knew himself caught, swept off his feet, momentarily driving -with him.... - -The singular deep satisfaction of it, standing there with these two in -the first moment, he describes as an entirely new sensation in his -life--an awareness that he was "complete." The boy touched his side and -he let an arm steal round to shelter him. The huge, bearded parent rose -in his massiveness against his other shoulder, hemming him in. For a -second he knew a swift and curious alarm, passing however almost at -once into the thrill of a rare happiness. In that moment, it was not the -passengers or the temper of Today who rejected them; it was they who -rejected the world: because they knew another and superior one--more, -they were in it. - -Then, without turning, the big man spoke, the words in heavy accented -English coming out laboriously and with slow, exceeding difficulty as -though utterance was a supreme effort. - -"You ... come ... with ... us?" It was like stammering almost. Still -more was it like essential inarticulateness struggling into an utterance -foreign to it--unsuited. The voice was a deep and windy bass, merging -with the noise of the sea below. - -"I'm going to the Caucasus," O'Malley replied; "up into the old, old -mountains, to--see things--to look about--to search--" He really wanted -to say much more, but the words lay dead or beyond reach. - -The big man nodded slowly. The boy listened. - -"And yourself--?" asked the Irishman, hardly knowing why he faltered and -trembled. - -The other smiled; a beauty that was beyond all language passed with that -smile across the great face in the dusk. - -"Some of us ... of ours ..." he spoke very slowly, very brokenly, -quarrying out the words with real labor, "... still survive... out -there.... We ... now go back. So very ... few ... remain.... And -you--come with us ..." - - - - -VI - -"In the spiritual Nature-Kingdom, man must everywhere seek his peculiar -territory and climate, his best occupation, his particular neighborhood, -in order to cultivate a Paradise in idea; this is the right system.... -Paradise is scattered over the whole earth, and that is why it has become -so unrecognizable." - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - -"Man began in instinct and will end in instinct. Instinct is genius in -Paradise, before the period of self-abstraction (self-knowledge)." - ---Ibid - - -"Look here, old man," he said to me, "I'll just tell you what it was, -because I know you won't laugh." - -We were lying under the big trees behind the Round Pond when he reached -this point, and his direct speech was so much more graphic than the -written account that I use it. He was in one of his rare moments of -confidence, excited, hat off, his shabby tie escaping from the shabbier -grey waistcoat. One sock lay untidily over his boot, showing bare leg. - -Children's voices floated to us from the waterside as though from very -far away, the nursemaids and perambulators seemed tinged with unreality, -the London towers were clouds, its roar the roar of waves. I saw only the -ship's deck, the grey and misty sea, the uncouth figures of the two who -leaned with him over the bulwarks. - -"Go on," I said encouragingly; "out with it!" - -"It must seem incredible to most men, but, by Gad, I swear to you, it -lifted me off my feet, and I've never known anything like it. The mind -of that great fellow got hold of me, included me. He made the inanimate -world--sea, stars, wind, woods, and mountains--seem all alive. The entire -blessed universe was conscious--and he came straight out of it to get me. -I understood things about myself I've never understood before--and always -funked rather;--especially that feeling of being out of touch with my -kind, of finding no one in the world today who speaks my language -quite--that, and the utter, God-forsaken loneliness it makes me suffer--" - -"You always have been a lonely beggar really," I said, noting the -hesitation that thus on the very threshold checked his enthusiasm, -quenching the fire in those light-blue eyes. "Tell me. I shall understand -right enough--or try to." - -"God bless you," he answered, leaping to the sympathy, "I believe you -will. There's always been this primitive, savage thing in me that keeps -others away--puts them off, and so on. I've tried to smother it a bit -sometimes--" - -"Have you?" I laughed. - -"'Tried to,' I said, because I've always been afraid of its getting out -too much and bustin' my life all to pieces:--something lonely and untamed -and sort of outcast from cities and money and all the thick suffocating -civilization of today; and I've only saved myself by getting off into -wildernesses and free places where I could give it a breathin' chance -without running the risk of being locked up as a crazy man." He laughed -as he said it, but his heart was in the words. "You know all that; -haven't I told you often enough? It's not a morbid egoism, or what their -precious academic books so stupidly call 'degenerate,' for in me it's -damned vital and terrific, and moves always to action. It's made me an -alien and--and--" - -"Something far stronger than the Call of the Wild, isn't it?" - -He fairly snorted. "Sure as we're both alive here sittin' on this sooty -London grass," he cried. "This Call of the Wild they prate about is -just the call a fellow hears to go on 'the bust' when he's had too much -town and's got bored--a call to a little bit of license and excess to -safety-valve him down. What I feel," his voice turned grave and quiet -again, "is quite a different affair. It's the call of real hunger--the -call of food. They want to let off steam, but I want to take in stuff to -prevent--starvation." He whispered the word, putting his lips close to my -face. - -A pause fell between us, which I was the first to break. - -"This is not your century! That's what you really mean," I suggested -patiently. - -"Not my century!" he caught me up, flinging handfuls of faded grass in -the air between us and watching it fall; "why, it's not even my world! -And I loathe, loathe the spirit of today with its cheap-jack inventions, -and smother of sham universal culture, its murderous superfluities and -sordid vulgarity, without enough real sense of beauty left to see that a -daisy is nearer heaven than an airship--" - -"Especially when the airship falls," I laughed. "Steady, steady, old boy; -don't spoil your righteous case by overstatement." - -"Well, well, you know what I mean," he laughed with me, though his face -at once turned earnest again, "and all that, and all that, and all -that.... And so this savagery that has burned in me all these years -unexplained, these Russian strangers made clear. I can't tell you how -because I don't know myself. The father did it--his proximity, his -silence stuffed with sympathy, his great vital personality unclipped by -contact with these little folk who left him alone. His presence alone -made me long for the earth and Nature. He seemed a living part of it -all. He was magnificent and enormous, but the devil take me if I know -how." - -"He said nothing--that referred to it directly?" - -"Nothing but what I've told you,--blundering awkwardly with those few -modern words. But he had it in him a thousand to my one. He made me feel -I was right and natural, untrue to myself to suppress it and a coward to -fear it. The speech-center in the brain, you know, is anyhow a -comparatively recent thing in evolution. They say that--" - -"It wasn't his century either," I checked him again. - -"No, and he didn't pretend it was, as I've tried to," he cried, sitting -bolt upright beside me. "The fellow was genuine, never dreamed of -compromise. D'ye see what I mean? Only somehow he'd found out where his -world and century were, and was off to take possession. And that's what -caught me. I felt it by some instinct in me stronger than all else; only -we couldn't talk about it definitely because--because--I hardly know how -to put it--for the same reason," he added suddenly, "that I can't talk -about it to you _now!_ There are no words.... What we both sought was a -state that passed away before words came into use, and is therefore -beyond intelligible description. No one spoke to them on the ship for -the same reason, I felt sure, that no one spoke to them in the whole -world--because no one could manage even the alphabet of their language. - -"And this was so strange and beautiful," he went on, "that standing -there beside him, in his splendid atmosphere, the currents of wind and -sea reached _me through him first_, filtered by his spirit so that I -assimilated them and they fed me, because he somehow stood in such close -and direct relation to Nature. I slipped into my own region, made happy -and alive, knowing at last what I wanted, though still unable to phrase -it. This modern world I've so long tried to adjust myself to became a -thing of pale remembrance and a dream...." - -"All in your mind and imagination, of course, this," I ventured, -seeing that his poetry was luring him beyond where I could follow. - -"Of course," he answered without impatience, grown suddenly thoughtful, -less excited again, "and that's why it was true. No chance of clumsy -senses deceiving one. It was direct vision. What is Reality, in the last -resort," he asked, "but the thing a man's vision brings to him--to -believe? There's no other criterion. The criticism of opposite types -of mind is merely a confession of their own limitations." - -Being myself of the "opposite type of mind," I naturally did not argue, -but suffered myself to accept his half-truth for the whole--temporarily. -I checked him from time to time merely lest he should go too fast for me -to follow what seemed a very wonderful tale of faerie. - -"So this wild thing in me the world today has beggared and denied," he -went on, swept by his Celtic enthusiasm, "woke in its full strength. -Calling to me like some flying spirit in a storm, it claimed me. The -man's being summoned me back to the earth and Nature, as it were, -automatically. I understood that look on his face, that sign in his eyes. -The 'Isles of Greece' furnished some faint clue, but as yet I knew no -more--only that he and I were in the same region and that I meant to -go with him and that he accepted me with delight that was joy. It drew -me as empty space draws a giddy man to the precipice's edge. Thoughts -from another's mind," he added by way of explanation, turning round, -"come far more completely to me when I stand in a man's atmosphere, -silent and receptive, than when by speech he tries to place them there. -Ah! And that helps me to get at what I mean, perhaps. The man, you -see, hardly thought; he _felt_." - -"As an animal, you mean? Instinctively--?" - -"In a sense, yes," he replied after a momentary hesitation. "Like some -very early, very primitive form of life." - -"With the best will in the world, Terence, I don't quite follow you--" - -"I don't quite follow myself," he cried, "because I'm trying to lead -and follow at the same time. You know that idea--I came across it -somewhere--that in ancient peoples the senses were much less specialized -than they are now; that perception came to them in general, massive -sensations rather than divided up neatly into five channels:--that they -felt all over so to speak, and that all the senses, as in an overdose of -hashish, become one single sense? The centralizing of perception in the -brain is a recent thing, and it might equally well have occurred in any -other nervous headquarters of the body, say, the solar plexus; or, -perhaps, never have been localized at all! In hysteria patients have been -known to read with the finger-tips and smell with the heel. Touch is -still all over; it's only the other four that have got fixed in definite -organs. There are systems of thought today that still would make the -solar plexus the main center, and not the brain. The word 'brain,' you -know, never once occurs in the ancient Scriptures of the world. You will -not find it in the Bible--the reins, the heart, and so forth were what -men felt with then. They felt all over--well," he concluded abruptly, "I -think this fellow was like that. D'ye see now?" - -I stared at him, greatly wondering. A nursemaid passed close, balancing a -child in a spring-perambulator, saying in a foolish voice, "Wupsey up, -wupsey down! Wupsey there!" O'Malley, in the full stream of his mood, -waited impatiently till she had gone by. Then, rolling over on his side, -he came closer, talking in a lowered tone. I think I never saw him so -deeply stirred, nor understood, perhaps, so little of the extreme -passion working in him. Yet it was incredible that he could have caught -so much from mere interviews with a semi-articulate stranger, unless -what he said was strictly true, and this Russian had positively touched -latent fires in his soul by a kind of sympathetic magic. - -"You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for -himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, -and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a -person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him. Well--I'd found mine, -that's all. I can't prove it to you with a pair of scales or a butcher's -meat-axe, but it's true." - -"And you mean his mere presence conveyed all this without speech almost?" - -"Because there _was_ no speech possible," he replied, dropping his voice -to a whisper and thrusting his face yet closer into mine. "We were -solitary survivors of a world whose language was either uncreated or"--he -italicized the word--"_forgotten_...." - -"An elaborate and detailed thought-transference, then?" - -"Why not?" he murmured. "It's one of the commonest facts of daily life." - -"And you had never fully realized it before, this loneliness and its -possible explanation--that there might exist, I mean, a way of satisfying -it--till you met this stranger?" - -He answered with deep earnestness. "Always, old man, always, but suffered -under it atrociously because I'd never understood it. I had been afraid -to face it. This man, a far bigger and less diluted example of it than -myself, made it all clear and right and natural. We belonged to the same -forgotten place and time. Under his lead and guidance I could find my -own--return...." - -I whistled a long soft whistle, looking up into the sky. Then, sitting -upright like himself, we stared hard at one another, straight in the eye. -He was too grave, too serious to trifle with. It would have been unfair -too. Besides, I loved to hear him. The way he reared such fabulous -superstructures upon slight incidents, interpreting thus his complex -being to himself, was uncommonly interesting. It was observing the -creative imagination actually at work, and the process in a sense seemed -sacred. Only the truth and actuality with which he clothed it all made -me a little uncomfortable sometimes. - -"I'll put it to you quite simply," he cried suddenly. - -"Yes, and 'quite simply' it was--?" - -"That he knew the awful spiritual loneliness of living in a world whose -tastes and interests were not his own, a world to which he was -essentially foreign, and at whose hands he suffered continual rebuff and -rejection. Advances from either side were mutually and necessarily -repelled because oil and water cannot mix. Rejected, moreover, not -merely by a family, tribe, or nation, but by a race and time--by the -whole World of Today; an outcast and an alien, a desolate survival." - -"An appalling picture!" - -"I understood it," he went on, holding up both hands by way of emphasis, -"because in miniature I had suffered the same: he was a supreme case of -what lay so deeply in myself. He was a survival of other life the modern -mind has long since agreed to exile and deny. Humanity stared at him over -a barrier, never dreaming of asking him in. Even had it done so he could -not by the law of his being have accepted. Outcast myself in some small -way, I understood his terrible loneliness, a soul without a country, -visible and external country that is. A passion of tenderness and -sympathy for him, and so also for myself, awoke. I saw him as chieftain -of all the lonely, exiled souls of life." - -Breathless a moment, he lay on his back staring at the summer -clouds--those thoughts of wind that change and pass before their meanings -can be quite seized. Similarly protean was the thought his phrases tried -to clothe. The terror, pathos, sadness of this big idea he strove to -express touched me deeply, yet never quite with the clarity of his own -conviction. - -"There _are_ such souls, _depaysees_ and in exile," he said suddenly -again, turning over on the grass. "They _do_ exist. They walk the earth -today here and there in the bodies of ordinary men ... and their -loneliness is a loneliness that must be whispered." - -"You formed any idea what kind of--of survival?" I asked gently, for -the notion grew in me that after all these two would prove to be mere -revolutionaries in escape, political refugees, or something quite -ordinary. - -O'Malley buried his face in his hands for a moment without replying. -Presently he looked up. I remember that a streak of London black ran -from the corner of his mouth across the cheek. He pushed the hair back -from his forehead, answering in a manner grown abruptly calm and -dispassionate. - -"Don't ye see what a foolish question that is," he said quietly, "and -how impossible to satisfy, inviting that leap of invention which can be -only an imaginative lie...? I can only tell you," and the breeze brought -to us the voices of children from the Round Pond where they sailed -their ships of equally wonderful adventure, "that my own longing -became this: to go with him, to know what he knew, to live where he -lived--forever." - -"And the alarm you said you felt?" - -He hesitated. - -"That," he added, "was a kind of mistake. To go involved, I felt, an -inner catastrophe that might be Death--that it would be out of the body, -I mean, or a going backwards. In reality, it was a going forwards and a -way to Life." - - - - -VII - - -And it was just before the steamer made Naples that the jolly Captain -unwittingly helped matters forward a good deal. For it was his ambition -to include in the safe-conduct of his vessel the happy-conduct also of -his passengers. He liked to see them contented and of one accord, a big -family, and he noted--or had word brought to him perhaps--that there were -one or two whom the attitude of the majority left out in the cold. - -It may have been--O'Malley wondered without actually asking--that -the man who shared the cabin with the strangers made some appeal for -re-arrangement, but in any case Captain Burgenfelder approached the -Irishman that afternoon on the bridge and asked if he would object -to having them in his stateroom for the balance of the voyage. - -"Your present gompanion geds off at Naples," he said. "Berhaps you would -not object. I think--they seem lonely. You are friendly with them. They -go alzo to Batoum?" - -This proposal for close quarters gave him pause. He knew a moment or two -of grave hesitation, yet without time to analyze it. Then, driven by a -sudden decision of the heart that knew no revision of reason, he agreed. - -"I had better, perhaps, suggest it to see if they are willing," he said -the next minute, hedging. - -"I already ask him dat." - -"Oh, you have! And he would like it--not object, I mean?" he added, aware -of a subtle sense of half-frightened pleasure. - -"Pleased and flattered on the contrary," was the reply, as he handed him -the glasses to look at Ischia rising blue from the sea. - -O'Malley felt as though his decision was somehow an act of -self-committal, almost grave. It meant that impulsively he accepted a -friendship which concealed in its immense attraction--danger. He had -taken the plunge. - -The rush of it broke over him like a wave, setting free a tumult of very -deep emotion. He raised the glasses automatically to his eyes, but -looking through them he saw not Ischia nor the opening the Captain -explained the ship would make, heading that evening for Sicily. He saw -quite another picture that drew itself up out of himself--was thrown -up, rather, somewhat with violence, as upon a landscape of dream-scenery. -The lens of passionate yearning in himself, ever unsatisfied, focused -it against a background far, far away, in some faint distance that was -neither of space nor time, and might equally have been past as future. -Large figures he saw, shadowy yet splendid, that ran free-moving as -clouds over mighty hills, vital with the abundant strong life of a -younger world.... Yet never quite saw them, never quite overtook them, -for their speed and the manner of their motion bewildered the sight.... - -Moreover, though they evaded him in terms of physical definition he knew -a sense of curious, half-remembered familiarity. Some portion of his -hidden self, uncaught, unharnessed by anything in modern life, rose with -a passionate rush of joy and made after them--something in him untamed as -wind. His mind stood up, as it were, and shouted "I am coming." For he -saw himself not far behind, as a man, racing with great leaps to join -them ... yet never overtaking, never drawing close enough to see quite -clearly. The roar of their tramping shook the very blood in his ears.... - -His decision to accept the strangers had set free in his being something -that thus for the first time in his life--escaped.... Symbolically -in his mind this Escape had taken picture form.... - -The Captain's voice was asking for the glasses; with a wrench that -caused almost actual physical pain he tore himself away, letting this -herd of Flying Thoughts sink back into the shadows and disappear. With -sharp regret he saw them go--a regret for long, long, far-off things.... - -Turning, he placed the field-glasses carefully in that fat open hand -stretched out to receive them, and noted as he did so the thick, pink -fingers that closed about the strap, the heavy ring of gold, the band of -gilt about the sleeve. That wrought gold, those fleshy fingers, the -genial gutteral voice saying "T'anks" were symbols of an existence tamed -and artificial that caged him in again.... - -Then he went below and found that the lazy "drummer" who talked -harvest-machines to puzzled peasants had landed, and in his place an -assortment of indiscriminate clothing belonging to the big Russian and -his son lay scattered over the upper berth and upon the sofa-bed beneath -the port-hole. - - - - -VIII - -"For my own part I find in some of these abnormal or supernormal facts -the strongest suggestions in favor of a superior consciousness being -possible. I doubt whether we shall ever understand some of them without -using the very letter of Fechner's conception of a great reservoir in -which the memories of earth's inhabitants are pooled and preserved, and -from which, when the threshold lowers or the valve opens, information -ordinarily shut out leaks into the mind of exceptional individuals among -us." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - - -And it was some hours later, while the ship made for the open sea, that -he told Dr. Stahl casually of the new arrangement and saw the change come -so suddenly across his face. Stahl stood back from the compass-box -whereon they leaned, and putting a hand upon his companion's shoulder, -looked a moment into his eyes. With surprise O'Malley noted that the pose -of cynical disbelief was gone; in its place was sympathy, interest, -kindness. The words he spoke came from his heart. - -"Is that true?" he asked, as though the news disturbed him. - -"Of course. Why not? Is there anything wrong?" He felt uneasy. The -doctor's manner confirmed the sense that he had done a rash thing. -Instantly the barrier between the two crumbled and he lost the first -feeling of resentment that his friends should be analyzed. The men thus -came together in unhindered sincerity. - -"Only," said the doctor thoughtfully, half gravely, "that--I may have -done you a wrong, placed you, that is, in a position of--" he hesitated -an instant,--"of difficulty. It was I who suggested the change." - -O'Malley stared at him. - -"I don't understand you quite." - -"It is this," continued the other, still holding him with his eyes. He -said it deliberately. "I have known you for some time, formed-er--an -opinion of your type of mind and being--a very rare and curious one, -interesting me deeply--" - -"I wasn't aware you'd had me under the microscope," O'Malley laughed, but -restlessly. - -"Though you felt it and resented it--justly, I may say--to the point of -sometimes avoiding me--" - -"As doctor, scientist," put in O'Malley, while the other, ignoring the -interruption, continued in German:-- - -"I always had the secret hope, as 'doctor and scientist,' let us put it -then, that I might one day see you in circumstances that should bring -out certain latent characteristics I thought I divined in you. I wished -to observe you--your psychical being--under the stress of certain -temptations, favorable to these characteristics. Our brief voyages -together, though they have so kindly ripened our acquaintance into -friendship"--he put his hand again on the other's shoulder smiling, -while O'Malley replied with a little nod of agreement--"have, of course, -never provided the opportunity I refer to--" - -"Ah--!" - -"Until now!" the doctor added. "Until now." - -Puzzled and interested the Irishman waited for him to go on, but the -man of science, who was now a ship's doctor, hesitated. He found it -difficult, apparently, to say what was in his thoughts. - -"You refer, of course, though I hardly follow you quite--to our big -friends?" O'Malley helped him. - -The adjective slipped out before he was aware of it. His companion's -expression admitted the accuracy of the remark. "You also see them--big, -then?" he said, quickly taking him up. He was not cross-questioning; -out of keen sympathetic interest he asked it. - -"Sometimes, yes," the Irishman answered, more astonished. "Sometimes -only--" - -"Exactly. Bigger than they really are; as though at times they gave -out--emanated--something that extended their appearance. Is that it?" - -O'Malley, his confidence wholly won, more surprised, too, than he quite -understood, seized Stahl by the arm and drew him toward the rails. They -leaned over, watching the sea. A passenger, pacing the decks before -dinner, passed close behind them. - -"But, doctor," he said in a hushed tone as soon as the steps had died -away, "you are saying things that I thought were half in my imagination -only, not true in the ordinary sense quite--your sense, I mean?" - -For some moments the doctor made no reply. In his eyes a curious -steady gaze replaced the usual twinkle. When at length he spoke it was -evidently following a train of thought of his own, playing round a -subject he seemed half ashamed of and yet desired to state with direct -language. - -"A being akin to yourself," he said in low tones, "only developed, -enormously developed; a Master in your own peculiar region, and a man -whose influence acting upon you at close quarters could not fail to -arouse the latent mind-storms"--he chose the word hesitatingly, as -though seeking for a better he could not find on the moment,--"always -brewing in you just below the horizon." - -He turned and watched his companion's face keenly. O'Malley was too -impressed to feel annoyance. - -"Well--?" he asked, feeling the adventure closing round him with quite a -new sense of reality. "Well?" he repeated louder. "Please go on. I'm not -offended, only uncommonly interested. You leave me in a fog, so far. I -think you owe me more than hints." - -"I do," said the other simply. "About that man is a singular quality -too rare for language to have yet coined its precise description: -something that is essentially"--they had lapsed into German now, and he -used the German word--"_unheimlich_." - -The Irishman started. He recognized this for truth. At the same time -the old resentment stirred a little in him, creeping into his reply. - -"You have studied him closely then--had him, too, under the microscope? -In this short time?" - -This time the answer did not surprise him, however. - -"My friend," he heard, while the other turned from him and gazed out over -the misty sea, "I have not been a ship's doctor--always. I am one now -only because the leisure and quiet give me the opportunity to finish -certain work, recording work. For years I was in the H----"--he mentioned -the German equivalent for the Salpetriere--"years of research and -investigation into the astonishing vagaries of the human mind and -spirit--with certain results, followed later privately, that it is now my -work to record. And among many cases that might well seem--er--beyond -either credence or explanation,"--he hesitated again slightly--"I came -across one, one in a million, let us admit, that an entire section of my -work deals with under the generic term of _Urmenschen_." - -"Primitive men," O'Malley snapped him up, translating. Through his -growing bewilderment ran also a growing uneasiness shot strangely -with delight. Intuitively he divined what was coming. - -"Beings," the doctor corrected him, "not men. The prefix _Ur-_, moreover, -I use in a deeper sense than is usually attached to it as in _Urwald_, -_Urwelt_, and the like. An _Urmensch_ in the world today must suggest a -survival of an almost incredible kind--a kind, too, utterly inadmissible -and inexplicable to the materialist perhaps--" - -"Paganistic?" interrupted the other sharply, joy and fright rising over -him. - -"Older, older by far," was the rejoinder, given with a curious hush and a -lowering of the voice. - -The suggestion rushed into full possession of O'Malley's mind. There rose -in him something that claimed for his companions the sea, the wind, the -stars--tumultuous and terrific. But he said nothing. The conception, -blown into him thus for the first time at full strength, took all his -life into its keeping. No energy was left over for mere words. The -doctor, he was aware, was looking at him, the passion of discovery and -belief in his eyes. His manner kindled. It was the hidden Stahl emerging. - -"... a type, let me put it," he went on in a voice whose very steadiness -thrilled his listener afresh, "that in its strongest development would -experience in the world today the loneliness of a complete and absolute -exile. A return to humanity, you see, of some unexpended power of -mythological values...." - -"Doctor...!" - -The shudder passed through him and away almost as soon as it came. Again -the sea grew splendid, the thunder of the waves held voices calling, and -the foam framed shapes and faces, wildly seductive, though fugitive as -dreams. The words he had heard moved him profoundly. He remembered how -the presence of the stranger had turned the world alive. - -He knew what was coming, too, and gave the lead direct, while yet -half afraid to ask the question. - -"So my friend--this big 'Russian'--?" - -"I have known before, yes, and carefully studied." - - - - -IX - -"Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much -transcending Intelligence and Will as these transcend mechanical -motion?" - ---HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_ - - -The two men left the rail and walked arm in arm along the deserted deck, -speaking in lowered voices. - -"He came first to us, brought by the keeper of an obscure hotel where he -was staying, as a case of lapse of memory--loss of memory, I should say, -for it was complete. He was unable to say who he was, whence he came, or -to whom he belonged. Of his land or people we could learn nothing. His -antecedents were an utter blank. Speech he had practically none of his -own--nothing but the merest smattering of many tongues, a word here, a -word there. Utterance, indeed, of any kind was exceedingly difficult to -him. For years, evidently, he had wandered over the world, companionless -among men, seeking his own, finding no place where to lay his head. -People, it seemed, both men and women, kept him at arm's-length, feeling -afraid; the keeper of the little hotel was clearly terrified. This -quality he had that I mentioned just now, repelled human beings--even in -the Hospital it was noticeable--and placed him in the midst of humanity -thus absolutely alone. It is a quality more rare than"--hesitating, -searching for a word--"purity, one almost extinct today, one that I have -never before or since come across in any other being--hardly ever, that -is to say," he qualified the sentence, glancing significantly at his -companion. - -"And the boy?" O'Malley asked quickly, anxious to avoid any discussion -of himself. - -"There was no boy then. He has found him since. He may find others -too--possibly!" The Irishman drew his arm out, edging away imperceptibly. -That shiver of joy reached him from the air and sea, perhaps. - -"And two years ago," continued Dr. Stahl, as if nothing had happened, -"he was discharged, harmless"--he lingered a moment on the word, "if not -cured. He was to report to us every six months. He has never done so." - -"You think he remembers you?" - -"No. It is quite clear that he has lapsed back completely again into -the--er--state whence he came to us, that unknown world where he -passed his youth with others of his kind, but of which he has been able -to reveal no single detail to us, nor we to trace the slightest clue." - -They stopped beneath the covered portion of the deck, for the mist -had now turned to rain. They leaned against the smoking-room outer -wall. In O'Malley's mind the thoughts and feelings plunged and reared. -Only with difficulty did he control himself. - -"And this man, you think," he asked with outward calmness, "is of--of -my kind?" - -"'Akin,' I said. I suggest--" But O'Malley cut him short. - -"So that you engineered our sharing a cabin with a view to putting -him again--putting us both--under the microscope?" - -"My scientific interest was very strong," Dr. Stahl replied carefully. -"But it is not too late to change. I offer you a bed in my own roomy -cabin on the promenade deck. Also, I ask your forgiveness." - -The Irishman, large though his imaginative creed was, felt oddly checked, -baffled, stupefied by what he had heard. He knew perfectly well what -Stahl was driving at, and that revelations of another kind were yet -to follow. What bereft him of very definite speech was this new fact -slowly awakening in his consciousness which hypnotized him, as it were, -with its grandeur. It seemed to portend that his own primitive yearnings, -so-called, grew out of far deeper foundations than he had yet dreamed -of even. Stahl, should he choose to listen, meant to give him -explanation, quasi-scientific explanation. This talk about a survival of -"unexpended mythological values" carried him off his feet. He knew it was -true. Veiled behind that carefully chosen phrase was something more--a -truth brilliantly discovered. He knew, too, that it bit at the -platform-boards upon which his personality, his sanity, his very life, -perhaps, rested--his modern life. - -"I forgive you, Dr. Stahl," he heard himself saying with a deceptive -calmness of voice as they stood shoulder to shoulder in that dark corner, -"for there is really nothing to forgive. The characteristics of these -_Urmenschen_ you describe attract me very greatly. Your words merely give -my imagination a letter of introduction to my reason. They burrow -among the foundations of my life and being. At least--you have done -me no wrong...." He knew the words were wild, impulsive, yet he could -find no better. Above all things he wished to conceal his rising, grand -delight. - -"I thank you," Stahl said simply, yet with a certain confusion. "I--felt -I owed you this explanation--er--this confession." - -"You wished to warn me?" - -"I wished to say 'Be careful' rather. I say it now--Be careful! I give -you this invitation to share my cabin for the remainder of the voyage, -and I urge you to accept it." The offer was from the heart, while the -scientific interest in the man obviously half hoped for a refusal. - -"You think harm might come to me?" - -"Not physically. The man is gentle and safe in every way." - -"But there _is_ danger--in your opinion?" insisted the other. - -"There _is_ danger--" - -"That his influence may make me as himself--an _Urmensch_?" - -"That he may--get you," was the curious answer, given steadily after -a moment's pause. - -Again the words thrilled O'Malley to the core of his delighted, -half-frightened soul. "You really mean that?" he asked again; "as 'doctor -and scientist,' you mean it?" - -Stahl replied with a solemn anxiety in eyes and voice. "I mean that you -have in yourself that 'quality' which makes the proximity of this 'being' -dangerous: in a word that he may take you--er--with him." - -"Conversion?" - -"Appropriation." - -They moved further up the deck together for some minutes in silence, but -the Irishman's feelings, irritated by the man's prolonged evasion, -reached a degree of impatience that was almost anger. "Let us be more -definite," he exclaimed at length a trifle hotly. "You mean that I might -go insane?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense," came the answer without a sign of annoyance -or hesitation; "but that something might happen to you--something that -science could not recognize and medical science could not treat--" - -Then O'Malley interrupted him with the vital question that rushed -out before he could consider its wisdom or legitimacy. - -"Then what really is he--this man, this 'being' whom you call a -'survival,' and who makes you fear for my safety. Tell me _exactly_ what -he is?" - -They found themselves just then by the doctor's cabin, and Stahl, -pushing the door open, led him in. Taking the sofa for himself, he -pointed to an armchair opposite. - - - - -X - -"Superstition is outside reason; so is revelation." - ---OLD SAYING - - -And O'Malley understood that he had pressed the doctor to the verge of -confessing some belief that he was ashamed to utter or to hold, something -forced upon him by his out-of-the-way experience of life to which his -scientific training said peremptorily "No." Further, that he watched him -keenly all the time, noting the effect his words produced. - -"He is not a human being at all," he continued with a queer thin whisper -that conveyed a gravity of conviction singularly impressive, "in the -sense in which you and I are accustomed to use the term. His inner being -is not shaped, as his outer body, upon quite--human lines. He is a Cosmic -Being--a direct expression of cosmic life. A little bit, a fragment, of -the Soul of the World, and in that sense a survival--a survival of her -youth." - -The Irishman, as he listened to these utterly unexpected words, felt -something rise within him that threatened to tear him asunder. Whether -it was joy or terror, or compounded strangely of the two, he could not -tell. It seemed as if he stood upon the edge of hearing something--spoken -by a man who was no mere dreamer like himself--that would explain the -world, himself, and all his wildest cravings. He both longed and feared -to hear it. In his hidden and most secret thoughts, those thoughts he -never uttered to another, this deep belief in the Earth as a conscious, -sentient, living Being had persisted in spite of all the forces education -and modern life had turned against it. It seemed in him an undying -instinct, an unmovable conviction, though he hardly dared acknowledge it -even to himself. - -He had always "dreamed" the Earth alive, a mothering organism to -humanity; and himself, _via_ his love of Nature, in some sweet close -relation to her that other men had forgotten or ignored. Now, therefore, -to hear Stahl talk of Cosmic Beings, fragments of the Soul of the World, -and "survivals of her early life" was like hearing a great shout of -command to his soul to come forth and share it in complete -acknowledgment. - -He bit his lips, pinched himself, stared. Then he took the black cigar he -was aware was being handed to him, lit it with fingers that trembled -absurdly, and smoked as hard as though his sanity depended on his -finishing it in a prescribed time. Great clouds rose before his face. But -his soul within him came up with a flaming rush of speed, shouting, -singing.... - -There was enough ash to knock off into the bronze tray beside him before -either said a word. He watched the little operation as closely as though -he were aiming a rifle. The ash, he saw, broke firmly. "This must be a -really good cigar," he thought to himself, for as yet he had not been -conscious of tasting it. The ash-tray, he also saw, was a kind of nymph, -her spread drapery forming the receptacle. "I must get one of those," he -thought. "I wonder what they cost." Then he puffed violently again. The -doctor had risen and was pacing the cabin floor slowly over by the red -curtain that concealed the bunk. O'Malley absent-mindedly watched -him, and as he did so the words he had heard kept on roaring at the -back of his mind. - -And then, while silence still held the room,--swift, too, as a second -although it takes time to write--flashed through him a memory of Fechner, -the German philosopher who held that the Universe was everywhere -consciously alive, and that the Earth was the body of a living Entity, -and that the World-Soul or Cosmic Consciousness is something more than a -picturesque dream of the ancients.... - -The doctor came to anchor again on the sofa opposite. To his great relief -he was the first to break the silence, for O'Malley simply did not know -how or where to begin. - -"We know today--_you_ certainly know for I've read it accurately -described in your books--that the human personality can extend itself -under certain conditions called abnormal. It can project portions of -itself, show itself even at a distance, operate away from the central -covering body. In exactly similar fashion may the Being of the Earth -have projected portions of herself in the past. Of such great powers or -beings there may be conceivably a survival ... a survival of a hugely -remote period when her Consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in -shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing -humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a -flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all -sorts and kinds...." - -And then, suddenly, as though he had been deliberately giving his -imagination rein yet now regretted it, his voice altered, his manner -assumed a shade of something colder. He shifted the key, as though to -another aspect of his belief. The man was talking swiftly of his -experiences in the big and private hospitals. He was describing _the_ -very belief to which he had first found himself driven--the belief that -had opened the door to so much more. So far as O'Malley could follow it -in his curiously excited condition of mind, it was little more or less -than a belief he himself had often played lovingly with--the theory that -a man has a fluid or etheric counterpart of himself which is obedient to -strong desire and can, under certain conditions, be detached--projected -in a shape dictated by that desire. - -He only realized this fully later perhaps, for the doctor used a -phraseology of his own. Stahl was telling calmly how he had been driven -to some such belief by the facts that had come under his notice both -in the asylums and in his private practice. - -"...That in the amazingly complex personality of a human being," he went -on, "there does exist some vital constituent, a part of consciousness, -that can leave the body for a short time without involving death; that it -is something occasionally visible to others; something malleable by -thought and desire--especially by intense and prolonged yearning; and -that it can even bring relief to its owner by satisfying in some -subjective fashion the very yearnings that drew it forth." - -"Doctor! You mean the 'astral'?" - -"There is no name I know of. I can give it none. I mean in other words -that it can create the conditions for such satisfaction--dream-like, -perhaps, yet intense and seemingly very real at the time. Great emotion, -for instance, drives it forth, explaining thus appearances at a distance, -and a hundred other phenomena that my investigations of abnormal -personality have forced me to recognize as true. And nostalgia often is -the means of egress, the channel along which all the inner forces and -desires of the heart stream elsewhere toward their fulfillment in some -person, place, or _dream_." - -Stahl was giving himself his head, talking freely of beliefs that rarely -found utterance. Clearly it was a relief to him to do so--to let himself -be carried away. There was, after all, the poet in him side by side with -the observer and analyst, and the fundamental contradiction in his -character stood most interestingly revealed. O'Malley listened, half in a -dream, wondering what this had to do with the Cosmic Life just mentioned. - -"Moreover, the appearance, the aspect of this etheric Double, molded -thus by thought, longing, and desire, corresponds to such thought, -longing, and desire. Its shape, when visible shape is assumed, may be -various--very various. The form might conceivably be _felt_, discerned -clairvoyantly as an emanation rather than actually seen," he continued. - -Then he added, looking closely at his companion, "and in your own case -this Double--it has always seemed to me--may be peculiarly easy of -detachment from the rest of you." - -"I certainly create my own world and slip into it--to some extent," -murmured the Irishman, absorbingly interested; "--reverie and so forth; -partially, at any rate." - -"'Partially,' yes, in your reveries of waking consciousness," Stahl took -him up, "but in sleep--in the trance consciousness--completely! And -therein lies your danger," he added gravely; "for to pass out completely -in _waking_ consciousness, is the next step--an easy one; and it -constitutes, not so much a disorder of your being, as a readjustment, but -a readjustment difficult of sane control." He paused again. "You pass out -while fully awake--a waking delusion. It is usually labeled--though in my -opinion wrongly so--insanity." - -"I'm not afraid of that," O'Malley laughed, almost nettled. "I can manage -myself all right--have done so far, at any rate." - -It was curious how the roles had shifted. O'Malley it was now who checked -and criticized. - -"I suggest caution," was the reply, made earnestly. "I suggest caution." - -"I should keep your warnings for mediums, clairvoyants, and the like," -said the other tartly. He was half amazed, half alarmed even while he -said it. It was the personal application that annoyed him. "They are -rather apt to go off their heads, I believe." - -Dr. Stahl rose and stood before him as though the words had given -him a cue he wanted. "From that very medium-class," he said, "my most -suggestive 'cases' have come, though not for one moment do I think of -including you with them. Yet these very 'cases' have been due one and -all to the same cause--the singular disorder I have just mentioned." - -They stared at one another a moment in silence. Stahl, whether O'Malley -liked it or no, was impressive. He gazed at the little figure in front of -him, the ragged untidy beard, the light shining on the bald skull, -wondering what was coming next and what all this bewildering confession -of unorthodox belief was leading up to. He longed to hear more about that -hinted Cosmic Life ... and how yearning might lead to its realization. - -"For any phenomena of the seance-room that may be genuine," he heard him -saying, "are produced by this fluid, detachable portion of the -personality, the very thing we have been speaking about. They are -projections of the personality--automatic projections of the -consciousness." - -And then, like a clap of thunder upon his bewildered mind, came this -man's amazing ultimatum, linking together all the points touched upon and -bringing them to a head. He repeated it emphatically. - -"And in similar fashion," concluded the calm, dispassionate voice -beside him, "there have been projections of the Earth's great -consciousness--direct expressions of her cosmic life--Cosmic Beings. And -of these distant and primitive manifestations, it is conceivable that -one or two may still--here and there in places humanity has never -stained--actually survive. This man is one of them." - -He turned on the two electric lights behind him with an admirable air of -finality. The extraordinary talk was at an end. He moved about the cabin, -putting chairs straight and toying with the papers on his desk. -Occasionally he threw a swift and searching glance at his companion, -like a man who wished to note the effect of an attack. - -For, indeed, this was the impression that his listener retained above -all else. This flood of wild, unorthodox, speculative ideas had been -poured upon him helter-skelter with a purpose. And the abruptness of -the climax was cleverly planned to induce impulsive, hot confession. - -But O'Malley found no words. He sat there in his armchair, passing -his fingers through his tumbled hair. His inner turmoil was too much -for speech or questions ... and presently, when the gong for dinner -rang noisily outside the cabin door, he rose abruptly and went out -without a single word. Stahl turned to see him go. He merely nodded -with a little smile. - -But he did not go to his stateroom. He walked the deck alone for a -time, and when he reached the dining room, Stahl, he saw, had already -come and gone. Halfway down the table, diagonally across, the face of -the big Russian looked up occasionally at him and smiled, and every -time he did so the Irishman felt a sense of mingled alarm and wonder -greater than anything he had ever known in his life before. One of the -great doors of life again had opened. The barriers of his heart broke -away. He was no longer caged and manacled within the prison of a puny -individuality. The world that so distressed him faded. The people in it -were dolls. The fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the tourists and the -rest were mere automatic puppets, all made to scale--petty scale, -amazingly dull, all exactly alike--tiny, unreal, half alive. - -The ship, meanwhile, he reflected with a joy that was passion, was -being borne over the blue sea, and this sea lay spread upon the curved -breast of the round and spinning earth. He, too, and the big Russian -lay upon her breast, held close by gravity so-called, caught closer -still, though, by something else besides. And his longings increased with -his understanding. Stahl, wittingly or unwittingly, had given them an -immense push forwards. - - - - -XI - -"In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is -awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual -exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. According to -this, consciousness can be localized in time and space." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -The offer of the cabin, meanwhile, remained open. In the solitude that -O'Malley found necessary that evening he toyed with it, though knowing -that he would never really accept. - -Like a true Celt his imagination took the main body of Stahl's words and -ensouled them with his own vivid temperament. There stirred in him this -nameless and disquieting joy that wrought for itself a Body from material -just beyond his thoughts--that region of enormous experience that ever -fringes the consciousness of imaginative men. He took the picture at its -face value, took it inside with his own thoughts, delighted in it, raised -it, of course, very soon to a still higher scale. If he criticized at all -it was with phrases like "The man's a poet after all! Why, he's got -creative imagination!" To find his own intuitions endorsed, even half -explained, by a mind of opposite type was a new experience. It emphasized -amazingly the reality of that inner world he lived in. - -This explanation of the big Russian's effect upon himself was terrific, -and that a "doctor" should have conceived it, glorious. That some -portion of a man's spirit might assume the shape of his thoughts and -project itself visibly seemed likely enough. Indeed, to him, it seemed -already a "fact," and his temperament did not linger over it. But that -other suggestion fairly savaged him with its strange grandeur. He played -lovingly with it. - -That the Earth was a living being was a conception divine in size as in -simplicity, and that the Gods and mythological figures had been -projections of her consciousness--this thought ran with a magnificent -new thunder about his mind. It was overwhelming, beautiful as Heaven -and as gracious. He saw the ancient shapes of myth and legend still alive -in some gorgeous garden of the primal world, a corner too remote for -humanity to have yet stained it with their trail of uglier life. He -understood in quite a new way, at last, those deep primitive longings -that hitherto had vainly craved their full acknowledgment. It meant that -he lay so close to the Earth that he felt her pulses as his own. The idea -stormed his belief. - -It was the Soul of the Earth herself that all these years had been -calling to him. - -And while he let his imagination play with the soaring beauty of the -idea, he remembered certain odd little facts. He marshaled them before -him in a row and questioned them: The picture he had seen with the -Captain's glasses--those speeding shapes of beauty; the new aspect of -a living Nature that the Russian's presence stirred in him; the man's -broken words as they had leaned above the sea in the dusk; the curious -passion that leaped to his eyes when certain chance words had touched -him at the dinner-table. And, lastly, the singular impression of giant -bulk he produced sometimes upon the mind, almost as though a portion of -him--this detachable portion molded by the quality of his spirit as he -felt himself to be--emerged visibly to cause it. - -Vaguely, in this way, O'Malley divined how inevitable was the apparent -isolation of these two, and why others instinctively avoided them. They -seemed by themselves in an enclosure where the parent lumberingly, and -the boy defiantly, disported themselves with a kind of lonely majesty -that forbade approach. - -And it was later that same night, as the steamer approached the Lipari -Islands, that the drive forward he had received from the doctor's words -was increased by a succession of singular occurrences. At the same time, -Stahl's deliberate and as he deemed it unjustifiable interference, helped -him to make up his mind decisively on certain other points. - -The first "occurrence" was of the same order as the "bigness"-- -extraordinarily difficult, that is, to confirm by actual measurement. - -It was ten o'clock, Stahl still apparently in his cabin by himself, and -most of the passengers below at an impromptu concert, when the Irishman, -coming down from his long solitude, caught sight of the Russian and his -boy moving about the dark after-deck with a speed and vigor that -instantly arrested his attention. The suggestion of size, and of rapidity -of movement, had never been more marked. It was as though a cloud of the -summer darkness moved beside them. - -Then, going cautiously nearer, he saw that they were neither walking -quickly, nor running, as he had first supposed, but--to his -amazement--were standing side by side upon the deck--stock still. The -appearance of motion, however, was not entirely a delusion, for he next -saw that, while standing there steady as the mast and life-boats behind -them, something emanated shadow-like from both their persons and seemed -to hover and play about them--something that was only approximately -of their own outer shapes, and very considerably larger. Now it veiled -them, now left them clear. He thought of smoke-clouds moving to and -fro about dark statues. - -So far as he could focus his sight upon them, these "shadows," without -any light to cast them, moved in distorted guise there on the deck with a -motion that was somehow rhythmical--a great movement as of dance or -gambol. - -As with the appearance of "bigness," he perceived it first out of the -corner of his eye. When he looked again he saw only two dark figures, -motionless. - -He experienced the sensation a man sometimes knows on entering a deserted -chamber in the nighttime, and is aware that the things in it have just -that instant--stopped. His arrival puts abrupt end to some busy activity -they were engaged in, which begins again the moment he goes. Chairs, -tables, cupboards, the very spots and patterns of the wall have just -flown back to their usual places whence they watch impatiently for his -departure--with the candle. - -This time, on a deck instead of in a room, O'Malley with his candle had -surprised them in the act: people, moreover, not furniture. And this -shadowy gambol, this silent Dance of the Emanations, immense yet -graceful, made him think of Winds flying, visible and uncloaked, -somewhere across long hills, or of Clouds passing to a stately, elemental -measure over the blue dancing-halls of an open sky. His imagery was -confused and gigantic, yet very splendid. Again he recalled the pictured -shapes seen with his mind's eye through the Captain's glasses. And as -he watched, he felt in himself what he called "the wild, tearing instinct -to run and join them," more even--that by rights he ought to have -been there from the beginning--dancing with them--indulging a natural and -instinctive and rhythmical movement that he had somehow forgotten. - -The passion in him was very strong, very urgent, it seems, for he took -a step forward, a call of some kind rose in his throat, and in another -second he would have been similarly cavorting upon the deck, when he -felt his arm clutched suddenly with vigor from behind. Some one seized -him and held him back. A German voice spoke with a guttural whisper -in his ear. - -Dr. Stahl, crouching and visibly excited, drew him forward a little. -"Hold up!" he heard whispered--for their India rubber soles slithered -on the wet decks. "We shall see from here, eh? See something at last?" -He still whispered. O'Malley's sudden anger died down. He could not -give vent to it without making noise, for one thing, and above all else -he wished to--see. He merely felt a vague wonder how long Stahl had -been watching. - -They crouched behind the lee of a boat. The outline of the ship rose, -distinctly visible against the starry sky, masts, spars, and cordage. A -faint gleam came through the glass below the compass-box. The wheel and -the heaps of coiled rope beyond rose and fell with the motion of the -vessel, now against the stars, now black against the phosphorescent foam -that trailed along the sea like shining lace. But the human figures, he -next saw, were now doing nothing, not even pacing the deck; they were -no longer of unusual size either. Quietly leaning over the rail, father -and son side by side, they were guiltless of anything more uncommon -than gazing into the sea. Like the furniture, they had just--stopped! - -Dr. Stahl and his companion waited motionless for several minutes in -silence. There was no sound but the dull thunder of the screws, and -a faint windy whistle the ship's speed made in the rigging. The -passengers were all below. Then, suddenly, a burst of music came up as -some one opened a saloon port-hole and as quickly closed it again--a -tenor voice singing to the piano some trivial modern song with a trashy -sentimental lilt. It was--in this setting of sea and sky--painful; -O'Malley caught himself thinking of a barrel-organ in a Greek temple. - -The same instant father and son, as though startled, moved slowly away -down the deck into the further darkness, and Dr. Stahl tightened his grip -of the Irishman's arm with a force that almost made him cry out. A gleam -of light from the opened port-hole had fallen about them before they -moved. Quite clearly it revealed them bending busily over, heads close -together, necks and shoulders thrust forward and down a little. - -"Look, by God!" whispered Stahl hoarsely as they moved off. "There's -a third!" - -He pointed. Where the two had been standing something, indeed, still -remained. Concealed hitherto by their bulk, this other figure had been -left. They saw its large, dim outline. It moved. Apparently it began -to climb over the rails, or to move in some way just outside them, -hanging half above the sea. There was a free, swaying movement about -it, not ungainly so much as big--very big. - -"Now, quick!" whispered the doctor excited, in English; "this time I find -out, sure!" - -He made a violent movement forward, a pocket electric lamp in his hand, -then turned angrily, furiously, to find that O'Malley held him fast. -There was a most unseemly struggle--for a minute, and it was caused by -the younger man's sudden passionate instinct to protect his own from -discovery, if not from actual capture and destruction. - -Stahl fought in vain, being easily overmatched; he swore vehement German -oaths under his breath; and the pocket-lamp, of course unlighted, fell -and rattled over the deck, sliding with the gentle roll of the steamer to -leeward. But O'Malley's eyes, even while he struggled, never for one -instant left the spot where the figure and the "movement" had been; and -it seemed to him that when the bulwarks dipped against the dark of the -sea, the moving thing completed its efforts and passed into the waves -with a swift leap. When the vessel righted herself again the outline of -the rail was clear. - -Dr. Stahl, he then saw, had picked up the lamp and was bending over -some mark upon the deck, examining a wide splash of wet upon which -he directed the electric flash. The sense of revived antagonism between -the men for the moment was strong, too strong for speech. O'Malley -feeling half ashamed, yet realized that his action had been instinctive, -and that another time he would do just the same. He would fight to the -death any too close inspection, since such inspection included also -now--himself. - -The doctor presently looked up. His eyes shone keenly in the gleam -of the lamp, but he was no longer agitated. - -"There is too much water," he said calmly, as though diagnosing a case; -"too much to permit of definite traces." He glanced round, flashing the -beam about the decks. The other two had disappeared. They were alone. "It -was outside the rail all the time, you see," he added, "and never quite -reached the decks." He stooped down and examined the splash once more. It -looked as though a wave had topped the scuppers and left a running line -of foam and water. "Nothing to indicate its exact nature," he said in a -whisper that conveyed something between uneasiness and awe, again turning -the light sharply in every direction and peering about him. "It came to -them--er--from the sea, though; it came from the sea right enough. That, -at least, is positive." And in his manner was perhaps just a touch to -indicate relief. - -"And it returned into the sea," exclaimed O'Malley triumphantly. It -was as though he related his own escape. - -The two men were now standing upright, facing one another. Dr. Stahl, -betraying no sign of resentment, looked him steadily in the eye. He put -the lamp back into his pocket. When he spoke at length in the darkness, -the words were not precisely what the Irishman had expected. Under them -his own vexation and excitement faded instantly. He felt almost sheepish -when he remembered his violence. - -"I forgive your behavior, of course," Stahl said, "for it is -consistent--splendidly consistent--with my theory of you; and of value, -therefore. I only now urge you again"--he moved closer, speaking almost -solemnly--"to accept the offer of a berth in my cabin. Take it, my -friend, take it--tonight." - -"Because you wish to watch me at close quarters." - -"No," was the reply, and there was sympathy in the voice, "but because -you are in danger--especially in sleep." - -There was a moment's pause before O'Malley said anything. - -"It is kind of you, Dr. Stahl, very kind," he answered slowly, and this -time with grave politeness; "but I am not afraid, and I see no reason to -make the change. And as it's now late," he added somewhat abruptly, -almost as though he feared he might be persuaded to alter his mind, "I -will say good-night and turn in--if you will forgive me--at once." - -Dr. Stahl said no further word. He watched him, the other was aware, as -he moved down the deck toward the saloon staircase, and then turned once -more with his lamp to stoop over the splashed portion of the boards. He -examined the place apparently for a long time. - -But O'Malley, as he went slowly down the hot and stuffy stairs, realized -with a wild and rushing tumult of joy that the "third" he had seen was of -a splendor surpassing the little figures of men, and that something deep -within his own soul was most gloriously akin with it. A link with the -Universe had been subconsciously established, tightened up, adjusted. -From all this living Nature breathing about him in the night, a message -had reached the strangers and himself--a message shaped in beauty and in -power. Nature had become at last aware of his presence close against her -ancient face. Henceforth would every sight of Beauty take him direct to -the place where Beauty comes from. No middleman, no Art was necessary. -The gates were opening. Already he had caught a glimpse. - - - - -XII - -In the stateroom he found, without surprise somehow, that his new -companions had already retired for the night. The curtain of the upper -berth was drawn, and on the sofa-bed below the opened port-hole the -boy already slept. Standing a moment in the little room with these two -close, he felt that he had come into a new existence almost. Deep within -him this sense of new life thrilled and glowed. He was shaking a little -all over, not with the mere tremor of excitement, however, but with the -tide of a vast and rising exultation he could scarce contain. For his -normal self was too small to hold it. It demanded expansion, and the -expansion it claimed had already begun. The boundaries of his personality -were enormously extending. - -In words this change escaped him wholly. He only knew that something -in him of an old unrest lay down at length and slept. Less acute grew -those pangs of starvation his life had ever felt--the ache of that -inappeasable hunger for the beauty and innocence of some primal state -before thick human crowds had stained the world with all their strife -and clamor. The glory of it burned white within him. - -And the way he described it to himself was significant of its true -nature. For it vans the analogy of childhood. The passion of a boy's -longing swept over him. He knew again the feelings of those early days -when-- - -A boy's will is the wind's will, -And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, - ---when all the world smells sweet and golden as a summer's day, and a -village street is endless as the sky.... - -This it was, raised to its highest power, that dropped a hint of -explanation into that queer heart of his wherein had ever burned the -strange desire for primitive existence. It was the Call, though, not of -his own youth alone, but of the youth of the world. A mood of the Earth's -consciousness--some giant expression of her cosmic emotion--caught -him. And it was the big Russian who acted as channel and interpreter. - -Before getting into bed, he drew aside the little red curtain that -screened his companion, and peered cautiously through the narrow slit. -The big occupant of the bunk also slept, his mane-like hair spread about -him over the pillow, and on his great, placid face a look of peace that -seemed to deepen with every day the steamer neared her destination. -O'Malley gazed for a full minute and more. Then the sleeper felt the -gaze, for suddenly the eyelids quivered, moved, and lifted. The large -brown eyes peered straight into his own. The Irishman, unable to turn -away in time, stood fixed and staring in return. The gentleness and power -of the look passed straight down into his heart, filled him to the brim -with things their owner knew, and confirmed that appeasement of his -own hunger, already begun. - -"I tried--to prevent the--interference," he stammered in a low voice. -"I held him back. You saw me?" - -A huge hand stretched forth from the bunk to stop him. Impulsively he -seized it with both his own. At the first contact he started--a little -frightened. It felt so wonderful, so mighty. Thus might a gust of wind -or a billow of the sea have thrust against him. - -"A messenger--came," said the man with that laborious slow utterance, and -deep as thunder, "from--the--sea." - -"From--the--sea, yes," repeated O'Malley beneath his breath, yet -conscious rather that he wanted to shout and sing it. He saw the big -man smile. His own small hands were crushed in the grasp of power. -"I--understand," he added in a whisper. He found himself speaking with -a similar clogged utterance. Somehow, it seemed, the language they -ought to have used was either forgotten or unborn. Yet whereas his friend -was inarticulate perhaps, he himself was--dumb. These little modern -words were all wrong and inadequate. Modern speech could only deal -with modern smaller things. - -The giant half rose in his bed, as though at first to leap forward and -away from it. He tightened an instant the grasp upon his companion's -hands, then suddenly released them and pointed across the cabin. That -smile of happiness spread upon his face. O'Malley turned. There the -boy lay, deeply slumbering, the clothes flung back so that the air from -the port-hole played over the bare neck and chest; upon his face, too, -shone the look of peace and rest his father wore, the hunted expression -all gone, as though the spirit had escaped in sleep. The parent pointed, -first to the boy, then to himself, then to this new friend standing -beside his bed. The gesture including the three of them was of singular -authority--invitation, welcome, and command lay in it. More--in some -incomprehensible way it was majestic. O'Malley's thought flashed upon -him the limb of some great oak tree, swaying in the wind. - -Next, placing a finger on his lips, his eyes once more swept O'Malley -and the boy, and he turned again into the little bunk that so difficultly -held him, and lay back. The hair flowed down and mingled with the beard, -over pillow and neck, almost to the shoulders. And something that was -enormous and magnificent lay back with him, carrying with it again that -sudden atmosphere of greater bulk. With a deep sound in his throat that -was certainly no actual word and yet more expressive than any speech, he -turned hugely over among the little, scanty sheets, drew the curtain -again before his face, and returned into the world of--sleep. - - - - -XIII - -"It may happen that the earthly body falls asleep in one direction deeply -enough to allow it in others to awaken far beyond its usual limits, and -yet not so deeply and completely as to awaken no more. Or, to the -subjective vision there comes a flash so unusually vivid as to bring to -the earthly sense an impression rising above the threshold from an -otherwise inaccessible distance. Here begin the wonders of clairvoyance, -of presentiments, and premonitions in dreams;--pure fables, if the future -body and the future life are fables; otherwise signs of the one and -predictions of the other; but what has signs exists, and what has -prophecies will come." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -But O'Malley rolled into his own berth below without undressing, sleep -far from his eyes. He had heard the Gates of ivory and horn swing softly -upon their opening hinges, and the glimpse he caught of the garden beyond -made any question of slumber impossible. Again he saw those shapes of -cloud and wind flying over the long hills, while the name that should -describe them ran, hauntingly splendid, along the mysterious passages of -his being, though never coming quite to the surface for capture. - -Perhaps, too, he was glad that the revelation was only partial. The -size of the vision thus invoked awed him a little, so that he lay there -half wondering at the complete surrender he had made to this guidance -of another soul. - -Stahl's warnings ran far away and laughed. The idea even came to him that -Stahl was playing with him: that his portentous words had been carefully -chosen for their heightening effect upon his own imagination so that the -doctor might study an uncommon and extreme "case." The notion passed -through him merely, without lingering. - -In any event it was idle to put the brakes on now. He was internally -committed and must go wherever it might lead. And the thought rejoiced -him. He had climbed upon a pendulum that swung into an immense past; but -its return swing would bring him safely back. It was rushing now into -that nameless place of freedom that the primitive portion of his being -had hitherto sought in vain, and a fundamental, starved craving of his -life would know satisfaction at last. Already life had grown all glorious -without. It was not steel engines but a speeding sense of beauty that -drove the ship over the sea with feet of winged blue darkness. The stars -fled with them across the sky, dropping golden leashes to draw him faster -and faster forwards--yet within--to the dim days when this old world yet -was young. He took his fire of youth and spread it, as it were, all over -life till it covered the entire world, far, far away. Then he stepped -back into it, and the world herself, he found, stepped with him. - -He lay listening to the noises of the ship, the thump and bumble of -the engines, the distant droning of the screws under water. From time -to time stewards moved down the corridor outside, and the footsteps -of some late passenger still paced the decks overhead. He heard voices, -too, and occasionally the clattering of doors. Once or twice he fancied -some one moved stealthily to the cabin door and lingered there, but the -matter never drew him to investigate, for the sound each time resolved -itself naturally into the music of the ship's noises. - -And everything, meanwhile, heard or thought, fed the central concern -upon which his mind was busy. These superficial sounds, for instance, -had nothing to do with the real business of the ship; _that_ lay below -with the buried engines and the invisible screws that worked like demons -to bring her into port. And with himself and his slumbering companions -the case was similar. Their respective power-stations, working in the -subconscious, had urged them toward one another inevitably. How long, he -wondered, had the spirit of that lonely, alien "being" flashed messages -into the void that reached no receiving-station tuned to their -acceptance? Their accumulated power was great, the currents they -generated immense. He knew. For had they not charged full into himself -the instant he came on board, bringing an intimacy that was immediate -and full-fledged? - -The untamed longings that always tore him when he felt the great winds, -moved through forests, or found himself in desolate places, were at last -on the high road to satisfaction--to some "state" where all that they -represented would be explained and fulfilled. And whether such "state" -should prove to be upon the solid surface of the earth, objective; or in -the fluid regions of his inner being, subjective--was of no account -whatever. It would be true. The great figure that filled the berth above -him, now deeply slumbering, had in him subterraneans that gave access -not only to Greece, but far beyond that haunted land, to a state of -existence symbolized in the legends of the early world by Eden and the -Golden Age.... - -"You are in danger," that wise old speculative doctor had whispered, -"and especially in sleep!" But he did not sleep. He lay there thinking, -thinking, thinking, a rising exaltation of desire paving busily the path -along which eventually he might escape. - -As the night advanced and the lesser noises retired, leaving only the -deep sound of the steamer talking to the sea, he became aware, too, that -a change, at first imperceptibly, then swiftly, was stealing over the -cabin. It came with a riot of silent Beauty. At a loss to describe it -with precision, he nevertheless divined that it proceeded from the -sleeping figure overhead and in a lesser pleasure, too, from the boy upon -the sofa opposite. It emanated from these two, he felt, in proportion as -their bodies passed into deeper and deeper slumber, as though what -occurred sometimes upon the decks by an act of direct volition, took -place now automatically and with a fuller measure of release. Their -spirits, free of that other world in sleep, were alert and potently -discharging. Unconsciously, their vital, underlying essence escaped into -activity. - -Growing about his own person, next, it softly folded him in, casing -his inner being with glory and this crowding sense of beauty. This -increased manifestation of psychic activity reached down into the very -core of himself, like invisible fingers playing upon an instrument. -Notes--powers--in his soul, hitherto silent because none had known how -to sound them, rose singing to the surface. For it seemed at length that -forms of some intenser life, busily operating, moved to and fro within -the painted white walls of that little cabin, working subtly to bring -about a transformation of himself. A singular change was fast and -cleverly at work in his own being. It was, he puts it, a silent and -irresistible Evocation. - -No one of his senses was directly affected; certainly he neither saw, -felt, nor heard anything in the usual acceptance of the terms; but any -instant surely, it seemed that all his senses must awake and report to -the mind things that were splendid beyond the common order. In the -crudest aspect of it, he felt as though he extended and grew large--that -he dreaded to see himself in the mirror lest he might witness an external -appearance of bigness which corresponded to this interior expansion. - -For a long time he lay unresisting, letting the currents of this -subjective tempest play through and round him. Entrancing sensations of -beauty and rapture came with it. The outer world seemed remote and -trivial, the passengers unreal--the priest, the voluble merchant, the -jovial Captain, all spun like dead things at the periphery of life; -whereas he was moving toward the Center. Stahl--! the thought of Dr. -Stahl, alone intruded with a certain unwelcome air of hindrance, almost -as though he sought to end it, or call a halt. But Stahl, too, himself -presently spun off like a leaf before the rising wind... - -And then it was that an external sense was tapped, and he did hear -something. From the berth overhead came a faint sound that made his -heart stand still, though not with common fear. He listened intently. -The blood tearing through his ears at first concealed its actual nature. -It was far, far away; then came closer, as a waft of wind brings near and -carries off again a sound of bells in mountains. It fled over vales and -hills, to return a moment after with suddenness--a little louder, a -little nearer. And with it came an increase of this sense of beauty that -stretched his heart, as it were, to some deep ancient scale of joy once -known, but long forgotten... - -Across the cabin, the boy moved uneasily in his sleep. - -"Oh, that I could be with him where he now is!" he cried, "in that -place of eternal youth and eternal companionship!" The cry was -instinctive utterly; his whole being, condensed in the single yearning, -pressed through it--drove behind it. The place, the companionship, the -youth--all, he knew, would prove in some strange way enormous, vast, -ultimately satisfying forever and ever, far out of this little modern -world that imprisoned him... - -Again, most unwelcome and unexplained, the face of Stahl flashed -suddenly before him to hinder and interrupt. He banished it with -an effort, for it brought a smaller comprehension that somehow -involved--fear. - -"Curse the man!" flamed in anger across his world of beauty, and the -violence of the contrast broke something in his mind like a globe of -colored glass that had focused the exquisiteness of the vision.... The -sound continued as before, but its power of evocation lessened. The -thought of Stahl--Stahl in his denying aspect--dimmed it. - -Glancing up at the frosted electric light, O'Malley felt vaguely that -if he turned it out he would somehow yet see better, hear better, -understand more; and it was this practical consideration, introduced -indirectly by the thought of Stahl, that made him realize now for the -first time that he actually and definitely was--afraid. For, to leave his -bunk with its comparative, protective dark, and step into the middle of -a cabin he knew to be alive with a seethe of invisible charging forces, -made him realize that distinct effort was necessary--effort of will. If -he yielded he would be caught up and away, swept from his known moorings, -borne through high space out of himself. And Stahl with his cowardly -warnings and belittlements set fear, thus, in the place of free -acceptance. Otherwise he might even have come to these long blue hills -where danced and raced the giant shapes of cloud, singing while.... - -"Singing!" Ah! There was the clue! The sound he heard was singing--faint, -low singing; close beside him too. It was the big man, singing softly in -his sleep. - -This ordinary explanation of the "wonder-sound" brought him down to -earth, and so to a more normal feeling of security again. He stepped -cautiously from the bed, careful not to let the rings rattle on the rod -of brass, and slowly raised himself upright. And then, through a slit of -the curtain, he--saw. The lips of the big sleeper moved gently, the beard -rising and falling very slightly with them, and this murmur that he had -thought so far away, came out and sang deliriously and faint before his -very face. It most curiously--flowed. Easily, naturally, almost -automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once -understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant -hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the -singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly -over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it -swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In -it, too, there lay some accent of a secret, dim sublimity, deeper far -than any other human sound could touch. The terror of a great freedom -caught him, a freedom most awfully remote from the smaller personal -existence he knew Today ... for it suggested, with awe and wonder, the -kind of primitive utterance that was before speech or the development of -language; when emotions were still too vague and mighty to be caught by -little words, but when beings, close to the heart of their great Mother, -expressed the feelings, enormous and uncomplex, of the greater life they -shared as portions of her--projections of the Earth herself. - -With a crash in his brain, O'Malley stopped. These thoughts, he suddenly -realized, were not his own. An attack of unwonted sensations stung and -scattered his mind with a rush of giant splendor that threatened to -overwhelm him. He was in the very act of being carried away; his sense of -personal identity menaced; surrender well-nigh already complete. - -Another moment, especially if those eyes opened and caught him, and he -would be beyond recall in the region of these other two. The narrow space -of that little cabin was charged already to the brim, filled with some -overpowering loveliness of wild and simple things, the beauty of stars -and winds and flowers, the terror of seas and mountains; strange radiant -forms of gods and heroes, nymphs, fauns and satyrs; the fierce sunshine -of some Golden Age unspoiled, of a stainless region now long forgotten -and denied--that world of splendor his heart had ever craved in vain, and -beside which the life of Today faded to a wretched dream. - -It was the _Urwelt_ calling.... - -With a violent internal effort, he tore his gaze from those eyelids that -fortunately opened not. At the same moment, though he did not hear them, -steps came close in the corridor, and there was a rattling of the knob. -Behind him, a movement from the berth below the port-hole warned him that -he was but just in time. The Vision he was afraid as yet to acknowledge -drew with such awful speed toward the climax. - -Quickly he turned away, lifted the hook of the cabin door, and passed -into the passage, strangely faint. A great commotion followed him out: -father and son both, it seemed, suddenly upon their feet. And at the -same time the sound of "singing" rolled into the body of a great hushed -chorus, as it were of galloping winds that filled big valleys far away -with a gust of splendor, faintly roaring in some incredible distance -where no cities were, nor habitations of men; with a freedom, too, that -was majestic and sublime. Oh! the terrific gait of that life in an open -world!--Golden to the winds!--uncrowded!--The cosmic life--! - -O'Malley shivered as he heard. For an instant, the true grain of his -inner life, picked out in flame and silver, flashed clear. Almost--he -knew himself caught back. - -And there, in the dimly-lighted corridor, against the paneling of the -cabin wall, crouched Dr. Stahl--listening. The pain of the contrast was -vivid beyond words. It seemed as if he had passed from the thunder of -organs to hear the rattling of tin cans. Instantly he understood the -force that all along had held him back: the positive, denying aspect of -this man's mind--afraid. - -"_You!_" he exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are _you_ doing here?" -He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on -tiptoe to his side. He moved hurriedly. - -"Come away," he said vehemently under his breath. "Come with me to my -cabin--to the decks--anywhere away from this--before it's too late." - -And the Irishman then realized that his face was white and that his -voice shook. The hand that gripped him by the arm shook too. - -They went quickly along the deserted corridor and up the stairs, -O'Malley making no resistance, moving in a kind of dream. He has a -fleeting recollection of an odor, sweet and slightly pungent as of -horses, in his nostrils. The wind of the open decks revived him, and he -saw to his amazement that the East was brightening. In that cabin, then, -hours had been compressed into minutes. - -The steamer had already slipped by the Straits of Messina. To the right -he saw the cones of Etna, shadowy in the sky, calling across the dawn to -Stromboli their smoking brother of the Lipari. To the left over the blue -Ionian Sea the lights of a cloudless sunrise rose softly above the world. - -And the hour of enchantment seized and shook him anew. Somewhere, across -those faint blue waves, lay the things that he so passionately sought. It -was the very essence of their loveliness and wonder that had charged down -between the walls of that stuffy cabin below. For every morning still, at -dawn, the tired world knows again the splendors of her youth; and the -Irishman, shuddering a little in his sacred joy, felt that he must burst -his bonds and fly to join the sunrise and the sea. The yearning, he was -aware, had now increased a thousandfold: its fulfillment was merely -delayed. - -He passed along the decks all slippery with dew into Dr. Stahl's cabin, -and flung himself on the broad sofa to sleep. Sleep, too, came at once; -he was profoundly exhausted; and, while he slept, Stahl watched over him, -covering his body with a thick blanket. - - - - -XIV - -"It is a lovely imagination responding to the deepest desires, instincts, -cravings of spiritual man, that spiritual rapture should find an echo in -the material world; that in mental communion with God we should find -sensible communion with nature; and that, when the faithful rejoice -together, bird and beast, hill and forest, should be not felt only, but -seen to rejoice along with them. It is not the truth; between us and our -environment, whatever links there are, this link is wanting. But the -yearning for it, the passion which made Wordsworth cry out for something, -even were it the imagination of a pagan which would make him 'less -forlorn,' is natural to man; and simplicity leaps at the lovely fiction -of a response. Just here is the opportunity for such alliances between -spiritualism and superstition as are the daily despair of seekers -after truth." - ---Dr. VERRALL - - -And though he slept for hours the doctor never once left his side, but -sat there with pencil and notebook, striving to catch, yet in vain, some -accurate record of the strange fragmentary words that fell from his lips -at intervals. His own face was aflame with an interest that amounted to -excitement. The very hand that held the pencil trembled. One would have -said that thus somewhat a man might behave who found himself faced with -confirmation of some vast, speculative theory his mind had played with -hitherto from a distance only. - -Toward noon the Irishman awoke. The steamer, still loading oranges and -sacks of sulfur in the Catania harbor, was dusty and noisy. Most of the -passengers were ashore, hurrying with guidebooks and field-glasses to see -the statue of the dead Bellini or watch the lava flow. A blazing, -suffocating heat lay over the oily sea, and the summit of the volcano, -with its tiny, ever-changing puff of smoke, soared through blue haze. - -To Stahl's remark, "You've slept eight hours," he replied, "But I feel as -though I'd slept eight centuries away." He took the coffee and rolls -provided, and then smoked. The doctor lit a cigar. The red curtains over -the port-holes shut out the fierce sun, leaving the cabin cool and dim. -The shouting of the lightermen and officers mingled with the roar and -scuttle of the donkey-engine. And O'Malley knew perfectly well that while -the other moved about carelessly, playing with books and papers on his -desk, he was all the time keeping him under close observation. - -"Yes," he continued, half to himself, "I feel as if I'd fallen asleep in -one world and awakened into another where life is trivial and -insignificant, where men work like devils for things of no value in order -to accumulate them in great ugly houses; always collecting and -collecting, like mad children, possessions that they never really -possess--things external to themselves, valueless and unreal--" - -Dr. Stahl came up quietly and sat down beside him. He spoke gently, -his manner kind and grave rather. He put a hand upon his shoulder. - -"But, my dear boy," he said, the critical mood all melted away, "do -not let yourself go too completely. That is vicious thinking, believe me. -All details are important--here and now--spiritually important, if you -prefer the term. The symbols change with the ages, that is all." Then, as -the other did not reply, he added: "Keep yourself well in hand. Your -experience is of extraordinary interest--may even be of value, to -yourself as well as to--er--others. And what happened to you last night -is worthy of record--if you can use it without surrendering your soul to -it altogether. Perhaps, later, you will feel able to speak of it--to tell -me in detail a little--?" - -His keen desire to know more evidently fought with his desire to protect, -to heal, possibly even to prevent. - -"If I felt sure that your control were sufficient, I could tell you in -return some results of my own study of--certain cases in the hospitals, -you see, that might throw light upon--upon your own curious experience." - -O'Malley turned with such abruptness that the cigar ash fell down -over his clothes. The bait was strong, but the man's sympathy was not -sufficiently of a piece, he felt, to win his entire confidence. - -"I cannot discuss beliefs," he said shortly, "in the speculative way you -do. They are too real. A man doesn't argue about his love, does he?" He -spoke passionately. "Today everybody argues, discusses, speculates: no -one believes. If you had your way, you'd take away my beliefs and put in -their place some wretched little formula of science that the next -generation will prove all wrong again. It's like the N rays one of you -discovered: they never really existed at all." He laughed. Then his -flushed face turned grave again. "Beliefs are deeper than discoveries. -They are eternal." - -Stahl looked at him a moment with admiration. He moved across the cabin -toward his desk. - -"I am more with you than perhaps you understand," he said quietly, yet -without too obviously humoring him. "I am more--divided, that's all." - -"Modern!" exclaimed the other, noticing the ashes on his coat for -the first time and brushing them off impatiently. "Everything in you -expresses itself in terms of matter, forgetting that matter being in -continual state of flux is the least real of all things--" - -"Our training has been different," observed Stahl simply, interrupting -him. "I use another phraseology. Fundamentally, we are not so far -apart as you think. Our conversation of yesterday proves it, if you have -not forgotten. It is people like yourself who supply the material that -teaches people like me--helps me to advance--to speculate, though -you dislike the term." - -The Irishman was mollified, though for some time he continued in the same -strain. And the doctor let him talk, realizing that his emotion needed -the relief of this safety-valve. He used words loosely, but Stahl did not -check him; it was merely that the effort to express himself--this self -that could believe so much--found difficulty in doing so coherently in -modern language. He went very far. For the fact that while Stahl -criticized and denied, he yet understood, was a strong incentive -to talk. O'Malley plunged repeatedly over his depth, and each time the -doctor helped him in to shore. - -"Perhaps," said Stahl at length in a pause, "the greatest difference -between us is merely that whereas you jump headlong, ignoring details -by the way, I climb slowly, counting the steps and making them secure. -I deny at first because if the steps survive such denial, I know that -they are permanent. I build scaffolding. You fly." - -"Flight is quicker," put in the Irishman. - -"It is for the few," was the reply; "scaffolding is for all." - -"You spoke a few days ago of strange things," O'Malley said presently -with abruptness, "and spoke seriously too. Tell me more about that, if -you will." He sought to lead the talk away from himself, since he did -not intend to be fully drawn. "You said something about the theory that -the Earth is alive, a living being, and that the early legendary forms of -life may have been emanations--projections of herself--detached portions -of her consciousness--or something of the sort. Tell me about that -theory. Can there be really men who are thus children of the earth, -fruit of pure passion--Cosmic Beings as you hinted? It interests me -deeply." - -Dr. Stahl appeared to hesitate. - -"It is not new to me, of course," pursued the other, "but I should like -to know more." - -Stahl still seemed irresolute. "It is true," he replied at length slowly, -"that in an unguarded moment I let drop certain observations. It is -better you should consider them unsaid perhaps: forget them." - -"And why, pray?" - -The answer was well calculated to whet his appetite. - -"Because," answered the doctor, bending over to him as he crossed over to -his side, "they are dangerous thoughts to play with, dangerous to the -interests of humanity in its present state today, unsettling to the soul, -shaking the foundations of sane consciousness." He looked hard at him. -"Your own mind," he added softly, "appears to me to be already on their -track. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have in you that kind of -very passionate desire--of yearning--which might reconstruct them and -make them come true--for yourself--if you get out." - -O'Malley, his eyes shining, looked up into his face. - -"'Reconstruct--make them come true--if I get out'!" he repeated -stammeringly, fearful that if he appeared too eager the other would stop. -"You mean, of course, that this Double in me would escape and build -its own heaven?" - -Stahl nodded darkly. "Driven forth by your intense desire." After a -pause he added, "The process already begun in you would complete -itself." - -Ah! So obviously what the doctor wanted was a description of his -sensations in that haunted cabin. - -"Temporarily?" asked the Irishman under his breath. - -The other did not answer for a moment. O'Malley repeated the question. - -"Temporarily," said Stahl, turning away again toward his desk, -"unless--the yearning were too strong." - -"In which case--?" - -"Permanently. For it would draw the entire personality with it...." - -"The soul?" - -Stahl was bending over his books and papers. The answer was barely -audible. - -"Death," was the whispered word that floated across the heavy air of -that little sun-baked cabin. - -The word if spoken at all was so softly spoken that the Irishman -scarcely knew whether he actually heard it, or whether it was uttered by -his own thought. He only realized--catching some vivid current from -the other man's mind--that this separation of a vital portion of himself -that Stahl hinted at might involve a kind of nameless inner catastrophe -which should mean the loss of his personality as it existed today--an -idea, however, that held no terror for him if it meant at the same time -the recovery of what he so passionately sought. - -And another intuition flashed upon its heels--namely, that this -extraordinary doctor spoke of something he knew as a certainty; that -his amazing belief, though paraded as theory, was to him more than -theory. Had he himself undergone some experience that he dared not -speak of, and were his words based upon a personal experience instead -of, as he pretended, merely upon the observation of others? Was this a -result of his study of the big man two years ago? Was this the true -explanation of his being no longer an assistant at the H--hospital, -but only a ship's doctor? Had this "modern" man, after all, a flaming -volcano of ancient and splendid belief in him, akin to what was in -himself, yet ever fighting it? - -Thoughts raced and thundered through his mind as he watched him across -the cigar smoke. The rattling of that donkey-engine, the shouts of the -lightermen, the thuds of the sulfur-sacks--how ridiculous they all -sounded, the clatter of a futile, meaningless existence where men -gathered--rubbish, for mere bodies that lived amid dust a few years, -then returned to dust forever. - -He sprang from his sofa and crossed over to the doctor's side. Stahl -was still bending over a littered desk. - -"You, too," he cried, and though trying to say it loud, his voice could -only whisper, "you, too, must have the _Urmensch_ in your heart and -blood, for how else, by my soul, could you _know_ it all? Tell me, -doctor, tell me!" And he was on the very verge of adding, "Join us! Come -and join us!" when the little German turned his bald head slowly round -and fixed upon the excited Irishman such a cool and quenching stare that -instantly he felt himself convicted of foolishness, almost of -impertinence. - -He dropped backwards into an armchair, and the doctor at the same moment -let himself down upon the revolving stool that was nailed to the floor in -front of the desk. His hands smoothed out papers. Then he leaned forward, -still holding his companion's eyes with that steady stare which forbade -familiarity. - -"My friend," he said quietly in German, "you asked me just now to tell -you of the theory--Fechner's theory--that the Earth is a living, -conscious Being. If you care to listen, I will do so. We have time." He -glanced round at the shady cabin, took down a book from the shelf -before him, puffed his black cigar and began to read. - -"It is from one of your own people--William James; what you call a -'Hibbert Lecture' at Manchester College. It gives you an idea, at least, -of what Fechner saw. It is better than my own words." - -So Stahl, in his turn, refused to be "drawn." O'Malley, as soon as he -recovered from the abruptness of the change from that other conversation, -gave all his attention. The uneasy feeling that he was being played -with, coaxed as a specimen to the best possible point for the microscope, -passed away as the splendor of the vast and beautiful conception dawned -upon him, and shaped those nameless yearnings of his life in glowing -language. - - - - -XV - - -The shadows of the September afternoon were lengthening toward us from -the Round Pond by the time O'Malley reached this stage of his curious and -fascinating story. It was chilly under the trees, and the "wupsey-up, -wupsey-down" babies, as he termed them, had long since gone in to their -teas, or whatever it is that London babies take at six o'clock. - -We strolled home together, and he welcomed the idea of sharing a dinner -we should cook ourselves in the tiny Knightsbridge flat. "Stewpot -evenings," he called these occasions. They reminded us of camping trips -together, although it must be confessed that in the cage-like room the -"stew" never tasted quite as it did beside running water on the skirts of -the forest when the dews were gathering on the little gleaming tent, and -the wood-smoke mingled with the scents of earth and leaves. - -Passing that grotesque erection opposite the Albert Hall, gaudy in the -last touch of sunset, I saw him shudder. The spell of the ship and sea -and the blazing Sicilian sunshine lay still upon us, Etna's cones -towering beyond those gilded spikes of the tawdry Memorial. I stole a -glance at my companion. His light blue eyes shone, but with the -reflection of another sunset--the sunset of forgotten, ancient, far-off -scenes when the world was young. - -His personality held something of magic in that silent stroll homewards, -for no word fell from either one of us to break its charm. The untidy -hair escaped from beneath the broad-brimmed old hat, and his faded coat -of grey flannel seemed touched with the shadows that the dusk brings -beneath wild-olive trees. I noticed the set of his ears, and how the -upper points of them ran so sharply into the hair. His walk was springy, -light, very quiet, suggesting that he moved on open turf where a sudden -running jump would land him, not into a motor-bus, but into a mossy -covert where ferns grew. There was a certain fling of the shoulders that -had an air of rejecting streets and houses. Some fancy, wild and sweet, -caught me of a faun passing down through underbrush of woodland glades to -drink at a forest pool; and, chance giving back to me a little verse of -Alice Corbin's, I turned and murmured it while watching him: - -What dim Arcadian pastures - Have I known, -That suddenly, out of nothing, - A wind is blown, -Lifting a veil and a darkness, - Showing a purple sea-- -And under your hair, the faun's eyes - Look out on me? - -It was, of course, that whereas his body marched along Hill Street and -through Montpelier Square, his thoughts and spirit flitted through the -haunted, old-time garden he forever craved. I thought of the morrow--of -my desk in the Life Insurance Office, of the clerks with oiled hair -brushed back from the forehead, all exactly alike, trousers neatly turned -up to show fancy colored socks from bargain sales, their pockets full of -cheap cigarettes, their minds busy with painted actresses and the names -of horses! A Life Insurance Office! All London paying yearly sums to -protect themselves against--against the most interesting moment of -life. Premiums upon escape and freedom! - -Again, it was the spell of my companion's personality that turned all -this paraphernalia of the busy, modern existence into the counters in -some grotesque and rather sordid game. Tomorrow, of course, it would -all turn real and earnest again, O'Malley's story a mere poetic fancy. -But for the moment I lived it with him, and found it magnificent. - -And the talk we had that evening when the stew-pot was empty and we were -smoking on the narrow-ledged roof of the prison-house--for he always -begged for open air, and with cushions we often sat beneath the stars and -against the grimy chimney-pots--that talk I shall never forget. Life -became constructed all anew. The power of the greatest fairy tale this -world can ever know lay about me, raised to its highest expression. I -caught at least some touch of reality--of awful reality--in the idea that -this splendid globe whereon we perched like insects peeping timidly from -tiny cells, might be the body of a glorious Being--the mighty frame to -which some immense Collective Consciousness, vaster than that of men, and -wholly different in kind, might be attached. - -In the story, as I found it later in the dusty little Paddington room, -O'Malley reported, somewhat heavily, it seemed to me, the excerpts -chosen by Dr. Stahl. As an imaginative essay, they were interesting, of -course, and vitally suggestive, but in a tale of adventure such as this -they overweight the barque of fancy. Yet, in order to appreciate what -followed, it seems necessary for the mind to steep itself in something of -his ideas. The reader who dreads to think, and likes his imagination to -soar unsupported, may perhaps dispense with the balance of this section; -but to be faithful to the scaffolding whereon this Irishman built his -amazing dream, I must attempt as best I can some precis of that -conversation. - - - - -XVI - -"Every fragment of visible Nature might, as far as is known, serve as -part in some organism unlike our bodies.... As to that which can, and -that which cannot, play the part of an organism, we know very little. A -sameness greater or less with our own bodies is the basis from which we -conclude to other bodies and souls.... A certain likeness of outward -form, and again some amount of similarity in action, are what we stand on -when we argue to psychical life. But our failure, on the other side, to -discover these symptoms is no sufficient warrant for positive denial. It -is natural in this connection to refer to Fechner's vigorous advocacy." - ---F.H. BRADLEY, _Appearance and Reality_ - - -It was with an innate resistance--at least a stubborn prejudice--that -I heard him begin. The earth, of course, was but a bubble of dried fire, -a huge round clod, dead as mutton. How could it be, in any permissible -sense of the word--alive? - -Then, gradually, as he talked there among the chimney-pots of old smoky -London, there stole over me this new and disquieting sense of reality--a -strange, vast splendor, too mighty to lie in the mind with comfort. -Laughter fled away, ashamed. A new beauty, as of some amazing dawn, -flashed and broke upon the world. The autumn sky overhead, thick-sown -with its myriad stars, came down close, sifting gold and fire about my -life's dull ways. That desk in the Insurance Office of Cornhill gleamed -beyond as an altar or a possible throne. - -The glory of Fechner's immense speculation flamed about us both, majestic -yet divinely simple. Only a dim suggestion of it, of course, lay caught -in the words the Irishman used--words, as I found later, that were a -mixture of Professor James and Dr. Stahl, flavored strongly with Terence -O'Malley--but a suggestion potent enough to have haunted me ever since -and to have instilled meanings of stupendous divinity into all the -commonest things of daily existence. Mountains, seas, wide landscapes, -forests,--all I see now with emotions of wonder, delight, and awe unknown -to me before. Flowers, rain, wind, even a London fog, have come to hold -new meanings. - -I never realized before that the mere _size_ of our old planet could -have hindered the perception of so fair a vision, or her mere -quantitative bulk have killed automatically in the mind the possible idea -of her being in some sense living. A microbe, endowed with our powers of -consciousness, might similarly deny life to the body of the elephant on -which it rode; or some wee arguing atom, endowed with mind and senses, -persuade itself that the monster upon whose flesh it dwelt were similarly -a "heavenly body" of dead, inert matter; the bulk of the "world" that -carried them obstructing their perception of its Life. - -And Fechner, as it seems, was no mere dreamer, playing with a huge -poetical conception. Professor of Physics in Leipsic University, he found -time amid voluminous labors in chemistry to study electrical science -with the result that his measurements in galvanism are classic to this -day. His philosophical work was more than considerable. "A book on the -atomic theory, classic also; four elaborate mathematical and experimental -volumes on what he called psychophysics (many persons consider Fechner to -have practically founded scientific psychology in the first of these -books); a volume on organic evolution, and two works on experimental -aesthetics, in which again Fechner is thought by some judges to have laid -the foundations of a new science," are among his other performances.... -"All Leipsic mourned him when he died, for he was the pattern of the -ideal German scholar, as daringly original in his thought as he was -homely in his life, a modest, genial, laborious slave to truth and -learning.... His mind was indeed one of those multitudinously organized -crossroads of truth which are occupied only at rare intervals by children -of men, and from which nothing is either too far or too near to be seen -in due perspective. Patientest observation, exactest mathematics, -shrewdest discrimination, humanest feeling, flourished in him on the -largest scale, with no apparent detriment to one another. He was in fact -a philosopher in the 'great' sense." - -"Yes," said O'Malley softly in my ear as we leaned against the chimneys -and watched the tobacco curl up to the stars, "and it was this man's -imagination that had evidently caught old Stahl and bowled him over. -I never fathomed the doctor quite. His critical and imaginative apparatus -got a bit mixed up, I suspect, for one moment he cursed me for asking -'suspicious questions,' and the next sneered sarcastically at me for -boiling over with a sudden inspirational fancy of my own. He never -gave himself away completely, and left me to guess that he made that -Hospital place too hot to hold him. He was a wonderful bird. But every -time I aimed at him I shot wide and hit a cloud. Meantime he peppered -me all over--one minute urging me into closer intimacy with my -Russian--his cosmic being, his _Urmensch_ type--so that he might study -my destruction, and half an hour later doing his utmost apparently to -protect me from him and keep me sane and balanced." His laugh rang -out over the roofs. - -"The net result," he added, his face tilted toward the stars as though -he said it to the open sky rather than to me, "was that he pushed me -forwards into the greatest adventure life has ever brought to me. I -believe, I verily believe that sometimes, there were moments of -unconsciousness--semi-consciousness perhaps--when I really did leave my -body--caught away as Moses, or was it Job or Paul?--into a Third Heaven, -where I touched a bit of Reality that fairly made me reel with happiness -and wonder." - -"Well, but Fechner--and his great idea?" I brought him back. - -He tossed his cigarette down into the back-garden that fringed the -Park, leaning over to watch its zigzag flight of flame. - -"Is simply this," he replied, "--'that not alone the earth but the -whole Universe in its different spans and wave-lengths, is everywhere -alive and conscious.' He regards the spiritual as the rule in Nature, not -the exception. The professorial philosophers have no vision. Fechner -towers above them as a man of vision. He dared to imagine. He made -discoveries--whew!!" he whistled, "and such discoveries!" - -"To which the scholars and professors of today," I suggested, "would -think reply not even called for?" - -"Ah," he laughed, "the solemn-faced Intellectuals with their narrow -outlook, their atrophied vision, and their long words! Perhaps! But in -Fechner's universe there is room for every grade of spiritual being -between man and God. The vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders -of body. He believes passionately in the Earth Soul, he treats her as our -special guardian angel; we can pray to the Earth as men pray to their -saints. The Earth has a Collective Consciousness. We rise upon the Earth -as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow out of her soil as leaves grow -from a tree. Sometimes we find our bigger life and realize that we are -parts of her bigger collective consciousness, but as a rule we are aware -only of our separateness, as individuals. These moments of cosmic -consciousness are rare. They come with love, sometimes with pain, music -may bring them too, but above all--landscape and the beauty of Nature! -Men are too petty, conceited, egoistic to welcome them, clinging for dear -life to their precious individualities." - -He drew breath and then went on: "'Fechner likens our individual -persons on the earth to so many sense-organs of her soul, adding to -her perceptive life so long as our own life lasts. She absorbs our -perceptions, just as they occur, into her larger sphere of knowledge. -When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for -all perceptive contributions from that particular quarter cease.'" - -"Go on," I exclaimed, realizing that he was obviously quoting verbatim -fragments from James that he had since pondered over till they had -become his own, "Tell me more. It is delightful and very splendid." - -"Yes," he said, "I'll go on quick enough, provided you promise me one -thing: and that is--to understand that Fechner does not regard the -Earth as a sort of big human being. If a being at all, she is a being -utterly different from us in kind, as of course we know she is in -structure. Planetary beings, as a class, would be totally different from -any other beings that we know. He merely protests at the presumption of -our insignificant human knowledge in denying some kind of life and -consciousness to a form so beautifully and marvelously organized as -that of the earth! The heavenly bodies, he holds, are beings superior to -men in the scale of life--a vaster order of intelligence altogether. A -little two-legged man with his cocksure reason strutting on its tiny -brain as the apex of attainment he ridicules. D'ye see, now?" - -I gasped, I lit a big pipe--and listened. He went on. This time it was -clearly a page from that Hibbert Lecture Stahl had mentioned--the one -in which Professor James tries to give some idea of Fechner's aim and -scope, while admitting that he "inevitably does him miserable injustice -by summarizing and abridging him." - -"Ages ago the earth was called an animal," I ventured. "We all know -that." - -"But Fechner," he replied, "insists that a planet is a higher class of -being than either man or animal--'a being whose enormous size requires an -altogether different plan of life.'" - -"An inhabitant of the ether--?" - -"You've hit it," he replied eagerly. "Every element has its own living -denizens. Ether, then, also has hers--the globes. 'The ocean of ether, -whose waves are light, has also her denizens--higher by as much as -their element is higher, swimming without fins, flying without wings, -moving, immense and tranquil, as by a half-spiritual force through the -half-spiritual sea which they inhabit,' sensitive to the slightest pull -of one another's attraction: beings in every way superior to us. Any -imagination, you know," he added, "can play with the idea. It is old as -the hills. But this chap showed how and why it could be actually true." - -"This superiority, though?" I queried. "I should have guessed their -stage of development lower than ours, rather than higher." - -"Different," he answered, "different. That's the point." - -"Ah!" I watched a shooting star dive across our thick, wet atmosphere, -and caught myself wondering whether the flash and heat of that hurrying -little visitor produced any reaction in this Collective Consciousness -of the huge Body whereon we perched and chattered, and upon which -later it would fall in finest dust. - -"It is by insisting on the differences as well as on the resemblances," -rushed on the excited O'Malley, "that he makes the picture of the earth's -life so concrete. Think a moment. For instance, our animal organization -comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to and fro, of stretching -our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only our defect." - -"Defect!" I cried. "But we're so proud of it!" - -'"What are our legs,'" he laughed, "'but crutches, by means of which, -with restless efforts, we go hunting after the things we have not inside -ourselves? The Earth is no such cripple; why should she who already -possesses within herself the things we so painfully pursue, have limbs -analogous to ours? What need has she of arms, with nothing to reach -for? Of a neck with no head to carry? Of eyes or nose, when she finds -her way through space without either, and has the millions of eyes of -all her animals to guide their movements on her surface, and all their -noses to smell the flowers she grows?'" - -"We are literally a part of her, then--projections of her immense life, -as it were--one of the projections, at least?" - -"Exactly. And just as we are ourselves a part of the earth," he -continued, taking up my thought at once, "so are our organs her organs. -'She is, as it were, eye and ear over her whole extent--all that we see -and hear in separation she sees and hears at once.'" He stood up beside -me and spread his hands out to the stars and over the trees and paths -of the Park at our feet, where the throngs of men and women walked -and talked together in the cool of the evening. His enthusiasm grew as -the idea of this German's towering imagination possessed him. - -"'She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon her surface, -and their multitudinous conscious relations with each other she takes -up into her higher and more general conscious life.'" - -He leaned over the parapet and drew me to his side. I stared with him -at the reflection of London town in the sky, thinking of the glow and -heat and restless stir of the great city and of the frantic strivings of -its millions for success--money, power, fame, a few, here and there, for -spiritual success. The roar of its huge trafficking beat across the night -in ugly thunder to our ears. I thought of the other cities of the world; -of its villages; of shepherds among the lonely hills; of its myriad wild -creatures in forest, plain, and mountain... - -"All this she takes up into her great heart as part of herself!" I -murmured. - -"All this," he replied softly, as the sound of the Band beyond the -Serpentine floated over to us on our roof; "--the separate little -consciousnesses of all the cities, all the tribes, all the nations of -men, animals, flowers, insects--everything." He again opened his arms to -the sky. He drew in deep breaths of the night air. The dew glistened on -the slates behind us. Far across the towers of Westminster a yellow moon -rose slowly, dimming the stars. Big Ben, deeply booming, trembled on -the air nine of her stupendous vibrations. Automatically, I counted -them--subconsciously. - -"And all our subconscious sensations are also hers," he added, catching -my thought again; "our dreams but half divined, our aspirations half -confessed, our tears, our yearnings, and our--prayers." - -At the moment it almost seemed to me as if our two minds joined, each -knowing the currents of the other's thought, and both caught up, gathered -ill, folded comfortably away into the stream of a Consciousness far -bigger than either. It was like a momentary, specific proof of what -he urged--a faint pulse-beat we heard of the soul of the earth; and it -was amazingly uplifting. - -"Every form of life, then, is of importance," I heard myself thinking, -or saying, for I hardly knew which. "The tiniest efforts of value--even -the unrecognized ones, and those that seem futile." - -"Even the failures," he whispered, "--the moments when we do not trust -her." - -We stood for some moments in silence. Presently, with a hand upon my -shoulder, he drew me down again among our rugs against the chimney-stack. - -"And there are some of us," he said gently, yet with a voice that held -the trembling of an immense joy, "who know a more intimate relationship -with their great Mother than the rest, perhaps. By the so-called Love -of Nature, or by some artless simplicity of soul, wholly unmodern of -course, perhaps felt by children or poets mostly, they lie caught close -to her own deep life, knowing the immense sweet guidance of her mighty -soul, divinely mothered, strangers to all the strife for material -gain--to that 'unrest which men miscall delight,'--primitive children of -her potent youth ... offspring of pure passion ... each individual -conscious of her weight and drive behind him--" His words faded away into -a whisper that became unintelligible, then inaudible; but his thought -somehow continued itself in my own mind. - -"The simple life," I said in a low tone; "the Call of the Wild, raised -to its highest power?" - -But he changed my sentence a little. - -"The call," he answered, without turning to look at me, speaking it -into the night about us, "the call to childhood, the true, pure, vital -childhood of the Earth--the Golden Age--before men tasted of the Tree and -knew themselves separate; when the lion and the lamb lay down together -and a little child could lead them. A time and state, that is, of which -such phrases can be symbolical." - -"And of which there may be here and there some fearful exquisite -survival?" I suggested, remembering Stahl's words. - -His eyes shone with the fire of his passion. "Of which on that little -tourist steamer I found one!" - -The wind that fanned our faces came perhaps across the arid wastes -of Bayswater and the North-West. It also came from the mountains and -gardens of this lost Arcadia, vanished for most beyond recovery.... - -"The Hebrew poets called it Before the Fall," he went on, "and later -poets the Golden Age; today it shines through phrases like the Land of -Heart's Desire, the Promised Land, Paradise, and what not; while the -minds of saint and mystic have ever dreamed of it as union with their -deity. For it is possible and open to all, to every heart, that is, not -blinded by the cloaking horror of materialism which blocks the doorways -of escape and prisons self behind the drab illusion that the outer form -is the reality and riot the inner thought...." - -The hoarse shouting of a couple of drunken men floated to us from the -pavements, and crossing over, we peered down toward the opening of Sloane -Street, watching a moment the stream of broughams, motors, and -pedestrians. The two men with the rage of an artificial stimulant in -their brains reeled out of sight. A big policeman followed slowly. The -night-life of the great glaring city poured on unceasingly--the stream -of souls all hurrying by divers routes and means toward a state where -they sought to lose themselves--to forget the pressure of the bars that -held them--to escape the fret and worry of their harassing personalities, -and touch some fringe of happiness! All so sure they knew the way--yet -hurrying really in the wrong direction--outwards instead of inwards; -afraid to be--simple.... - -We moved back to our rugs. For a long time neither of us found -anything to say. Soon I led the way down the creaking ladder indoors -again, and we entered the stuffy little sitting-room of the tiny flat he -temporarily occupied. I turned up an electric light, but O'Malley begged -me to lower it. I only had time to see that his eyes were still aglow. We -sat by the open window. He drew a worn notebook from his still more -worn coat; but it was too dark for him to read. He knew it all by heart. - - - - -XVII - - -Some of Fechner's reasons for thinking the Earth a being superior in the -scale to ourselves, he gave, but it was another passage that lingered -chiefly in my heart, the description of the daring German's joy in -dwelling upon her perfections--later, too, of his first simple vision. -Though myself wholly of the earth, earthy in the ordinary sense, the -beauty of the thoughts live in my spirit to this day, transfiguring even -that dingy Insurance Office, streaming through all my dullest, hardest -daily tasks with the inspiration of a simple delight that helps me over -many a difficult weary time of work and duty. - -"'To carry her precious freight through the hours and seasons what form -could be more excellent than hers--being as it is horse, wheels, and -wagon all in one. Think of her beauty--a shining ball, sky-blue and -sunlit over one half, the other bathed in starry night, reflecting the -heavens from all her waters, myriads of lights and shadows in the folds -of her mountains and windings of her valleys she would be a spectacle -of rainbow glory, could one only see her from afar as we see parts of -her from her own mountain tops. Every quality of landscape that has -a name would then be visible in her all at once--all that is delicate or -graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or -cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. _That landscape is her face_--a peopled -landscape, too, for men's eyes would appear in it like diamonds among the -dew-drops. Green would be the dominant color, but the blue atmosphere -and the clouds would enfold her as a bride is shrouded in her veil--a -veil the vapory, transparent folds of which the earth, through her -ministers the winds, never tires of laying and folding about herself -anew.' - -"She needs, as a sentient organism," he continued, pointing into the -curtain of blue night beyond the window, "no heart or brain or lungs -as we do, for she is--different. 'Their functions she performs _through -us_! She has no proper muscles or limbs of her own, and the only objects -external to her are the other stars. To these her whole mass reacts by -the most exquisite alterations in its total gait and by the still more -exquisite vibratory responses in its substance. Her ocean reflects the -lights of heaven as in a mighty mirror, her atmosphere refracts them like -a monstrous lens, the clouds and snowfields combine them into white, -the woods and flowers disperse them into colors.... Men have always -made fables about angels, dwelling in the light, needing no earthly food -or drink, messengers between ourselves and God. Here are actually -existent beings, dwelling in the light and moving through the sky, -needing neither food nor drink, intermediaries between God and us, -obeying His commands. So, if the heavens really are the home of angels, -the heavenly bodies must be those very angels, for other creatures there -are none. Yes! the Earth is our great common guardian angel, who -watches over all our interests combined.' - -"And then," whispered the Irishman, seeing that I still eagerly listened, -"give your ear to one of his moments of direct vision. Note its -simplicity, and the authority of its conviction: - -"'On a certain spring morning I went out to walk. The fields were green, -the birds sang, the dew glistened, the smoke was rising, here and there a -man appeared; a light as of transfiguration lay on all things. It was -only a little bit of the earth; it was only a moment of her existence; -and yet as my look embraced her more and more it seemed to me not -only so beautiful an idea, but so true and clear a fact, that she is an -angel, an angel so rich and fresh and flower-like, and yet going her -round in the skies so firmly and so at one with herself, turning her -whole living face to Heaven, and carrying me along with her into that -Heaven, that I asked myself how the opinions of men could ever have so -spun themselves away from life as to deem the earth only a dry clod, -and to seek for angels above it or about it in the emptiness of the -sky,--only to find them nowhere.'" - -Fire-engines, clanging as with a hurrying anger through the night, -broke in upon his impassioned sentences; the shouts of the men drowned -his last words.... - -Life became very wonderful inside those tight, confining walls, for -the spell and grandeur of the whole conception lifted the heart. Even -if belief failed, in the sense of believing--a shilling, it succeeded in -the sense of believing--a symphony. The invading beauty swept about us -both. Here was a glory that was also a driving power upon which any -but a man half dead could draw for practical use. For the big conceptions -fan the will. The little pains of life, they make one feel, need not kill -true joy, nor deaden effort. - -"Come," said O'Malley softly, interrupting my dream of hope and -splendor, "let us walk together through the Park to your place. It is -late, and you, I know, have to be up early in the morning ... earlier -than I." - -And presently we passed the statue of Achilles and got our feet upon -the turf beyond--a little bit of living planet in the middle of the -heavy smothering London town. About us, over us, within us, stirred the -awe of that immense idea. Upon that bit of living, growing turf we -passed toward the Marble Arch, treading, as it were, the skin of a huge -Body--the physical expression of a grand angelic Being, alive, sentient, -conscious. Conscious, moreover, of our little separate individual selves -who walked ... a Being who cared; who felt us; who knew, understood, -and--loved us as a mother her own offspring.... "To whom men could -pray as they pray to their saints." - -The conception, even thus dimly and confusedly adumbrated, brought a new -sense of life--terrific and eternal. All living things upon the earth's -surface were emanations of her mighty central soul; all--from the gods -and fairies of olden time who knew it, to the men and women of Today who -have forgotten it. - -The gods--! - -Were these then projections of her personality--aspects and facets -of her divided self--emanations now withdrawn? Latent in her did they -still exist as moods or Powers--true, alive, everlasting, but unmanifest? -Still knowable to simple men and to Children of Nature? - -Was this the giant truth that Stahl had built on Fechner? - -Everything about us seemed to draw together into an immense and -towering configuration that included trees and air and the sweep of -open park--the looming and overwhelming beauty of one of these very -gods survived--Pan, the eternal and the splendid ... a mood of the -Earth-life, a projection clothed with the light of stars, the cloudy air, -the passion of the night, the thrill of an august, extended Mood. - -And the others were not so very far behind--those other little parcels -of Earth's Consciousness the Greeks and early races, the simple, -primitive, childlike peoples of the dawn, divined the existence of, and -labeled "gods" ... and worshipped ... so as to draw their powers into -themselves by ecstasy and vision ... - -Could, then, worship now still recall them? Was the attitude of even -one true worshipper's heart the force necessary to touch that particular -aspect of the mighty total Consciousness of Earth, and call forth those -ancient forms of beauty? Could it be that this idea--the idea of "the -gods"--was thus forever true and vital...? And might they be known -and felt in the heart if not actually in some suggested form? - -I only know that as we walked home past the doors of that dingy -Paddington house where Terence O'Malley kept his dusty books and -papers and so to my own quarters, these things he talked about dropped -into my mind with a bewildering splendor to stay forever. His words I -have forgotten, or how he made such speculations worth listening to at -all. Yet, I hear them singing in my blood as though of yesterday; and -often when that conflict comes 'twixt duty and desire that makes life -sometimes so vain and bitter, the memory comes to lift with strength -far greater than my own. The Earth can heal and bless. - - - - -XVIII - - -Slowly, taking life easily, the little steamer puffed its way across the -Ionian Sea. The pyramid of Etna, bluer even than the sky, dominated -the western horizon long after the heel of Italy had faded, then melted -in its turn into the haze of cloud and distance. No other sails were -visible. - -With the passing of Calabria spring had leaped into the softness of -full summer, and the breezes were gentle as those that long ago fanned -the cheeks and hair of Io, beloved of Zeus, as she flew southwards toward -the Nile. The passengers, less lovely than that fair daughter of Argos, -and with the unrest of thinner adventure in their blood, basked lazily -in the sun; but the sea was not less haunted for those among them whose -hearts could travel. The Irishman at any rate slipped beyond the confines -of the body, viewing that ancient scene as she had done, from above. -His widening consciousness expanded to include it. - -Cachalots spouted; dolphins danced, as though still to those wild -flutes of Dionysus; porpoises rolled beneath the surface of the -transparent waves, diving below the vessel's sides but just in time to -save their shiny noses; and all day long, ignoring the chart upon the -stairway walls, the tourists turned their glasses eastwards, searching -for a first sight of Greece. - -O'Malley, meanwhile, trod the decks of a new ship. For him now sea -and sky were doubly peopled. The wind brought messages of some divine -deliverance approaching slowly, the heat of that pearly, shining sun -warmed centers of his being that hitherto the world kept chill. The land -toward which the busy steamer moved he knew, of course, was but the -shell from which the inner spirit of beauty once vivifying it had long -since passed away. Yet it remained a clue. That ancient loveliness, as a -mood of the earth's early consciousness, was buried, not destroyed. -Eternally it still flamed somewhere. And, long before the days of Greece, -he knew, it had existed in yet fuller and more complete manifestation: -that earliest, vastly splendid Mood of the earth's soul, too mighty for -any existence that the history of humanity can recall, and too remote -for any but the most daringly imaginative minds even to conceive. The -_Urwelt_ Mood, as Stahl himself admitted, even while it called to him, -was a reconstruction that to men today could only seem--dangerous. - -And his own little Self, guided by the inarticulate stranger, was being -led at last toward its complete recapture. - -Yet, while he crawled slowly with the steamer over a tiny portion of -the spinning globe, feeling that at the same time he crawled toward a -spot upon it where access would be somehow possible to this huge -expression of her first Life--what was it, phrased timidly as men phrase -big thoughts today, that he really believed? Even in our London talks, -intimate as they were, interpreted too by gesture, facial expression, -and--silence, his full meaning evaded precise definition. "There are no -words, there are no words," he kept saying, shrugging his shoulders and -stroking his untidy hair. "In me, deep down, it all lies clear and plain -and strong; but language cannot seize a mode of life that throve before -language existed. If you cannot catch the picture from my thoughts, I -give up the whole dream in despair." And in his written account, owing -to its strange formlessness, the result was not a little bewildering. - -Briefly stated, however--that remnant, at least, which I discover in -my own mind when attempting to tell the story to others--what he -felt, believed, _lived_, at any rate while the adventure lasted, was -this:-- - -That the Earth, as a living, conscious Being, had known visible -projections of her consciousness similar to those projections of our own -personality which the advanced psychologists of today now envisage as -possible; that the simple savagery of his own nature, and the poignant -yearnings derived from it, were in reality due to his intimate closeness -to the life of the Earth; that, whereas in the body the fulfillment of -these longings was impossible, in the spirit he might yet know contact -with the soul of the planet, and thus experience their complete -satisfaction. Further, that the portion of his personality which could -thus enter this heaven of its own subjective construction, was that -detachable portion Stahl had spoken of as being "malleable by desire and -longing," leaving the body partially and temporarily sometimes in sleep, -and, at death, completely. More,--that the state thus entered would mean -a quasi-merging back into the life of the Earth herself, of which he was -a partial expression. - -This closeness to Nature was today so rare as to be almost unrecognized -as possible. Its possession constituted its owner what the doctor -called a "Cosmic Being"--a being scarcely differentiated from the life -of the Earth Spirit herself--a direct expression of her life, a survival -of a time before such expressions had separated away from her and become -individualized as human creatures. Moreover, certain of these earliest -manifestations or projections of her consciousness, knowing in their -huge shapes of fearful yet simple beauty a glory of her own being, still -also survived. The generic term of "gods" might describe their status as -interpreted to the little human power called Imagination. - -This call to the simple life of primal innocence and wonder that had ever -brimmed the heart of the Irishman, acknowledged while not understood, -might have slumbered itself away with the years among modern conditions -into atrophy and denial, had he not chanced to encounter a more direct -and vital instance of it even than himself. The powerfully-charged being -of this Russian stranger had summoned it forth. The mere presence of this -man quickened and evoked this faintly-stirring center in his psychic -being that opened the channel of return. Speech, as any other -explanation, was unnecessary. To resist was still within his power. To -accept and go was also open to him. The "inner catastrophe" he feared -need not perhaps be insuperable or permanent. - -"Remember," the doctor had said to him at the end of that last -significant conversation, "this berth in my stateroom is freely at your -disposal till Batoum." And O'Malley, thanking him, had shaken off -that restraining hand upon his arm, knowing that he would never make -use of it again. - -For the Russian stranger and his son had somehow made him free. - -Between that cabin and the decks he spent his day. Occasionally he -would go below to report progress, as it were, by little sentences which -he divined would be acceptable, and at the same time gave expression -to his own growing delight. The boy, meanwhile, was everywhere, playing -alone like a wild thing; one minute in the bows, hat off, gazing -across the sea beneath a shading hand, and the next leaning over the -stern-rails to watch the churning foam that drove them forwards. At -regular intervals he, too, rushed to the cabin and brought communications -to his parent. - -"Tomorrow at dawn," observed the Irishman, "we shall see Cape Mattapan -rising from the sea. After that, Athens for a few hours; then coasting -through the Cyclades, close to the mainland often." And glancing over to -the berth, while pretending to be busy with his steamer-trunk, he saw the -great smile of happiness break over the other's face like a sunrise.... - -For it was clear to him that with the approach to Greece, a change -began to come over his companions. It was noticeable chiefly in the -father. The joy that filled the man, too fine and large to be named -excitement, passed from him in radiations that positively seemed to -carry with them a physical extension. This, of course, was purely a -clairvoyant effect upon the mind--O'Malley's divining faculty -visualized the spiritual traits of the man's dilating Self. But, -nevertheless, the truth remained that--somehow he increased. He grew; -became interiorly more active, alive, potent; and of this singular waxing -of the inner spirit something passed outwards and stood with rare dignity -about his very figure. - -And this manifestation of themselves was due to that expansion of -the inner life caused by happiness. The little point of their -personalities they showed normally to the world was but a single facet, a -tip as it were of their whole selves. More lay within, beyond. As with -the rest of the world, a great emotion stimulated and summoned it forth -into activity nearer the surface. Clearly, for these two Greece -symbolized a point of departure of a great hidden passion. Something they -expected lay waiting for them there. Guidance would come thence. - -And, by reflection perhaps as much as by direct stimulation, the same -change made itself felt in himself. Joy caught him--the joy of a -home-coming, long deferred.... - -At the same time, the warning of Dr. Stahl worked in him, if -subconsciously only. He showed this by mixing more with the other -passengers. He chatted with the Captain, who was as pleased with his -big family as though he had personally provided the weather that made -them happy; with the Armenian priest, who was eager to show that he -had read "a much of T'ackeray and Keeplin"; and especially with the -boasting Moscow merchant, who by this time "owned" the smoking-room and -imposed his verbose commonplaces upon one and all with authoritative -self-confidence in six languages--a provincial mind in full display. The -latter in particular held him to a normal humanity; his atmosphere -breathed the wholesome thickness of the majority of humankind--ordinary, -egoistic, with the simplicity of the uninspiring sort. The merchant acted -upon him as a sedative, and that day the Irishman took him in large -doses, allopathically, for his talk formed an admirable antidote to the -stress of that other burning excitement that, according to Stahl, -threatened to disintegrate his personality. - -Though hardly in the sense he intended, the fur-merchant was entirely -delightful--engaging as a child; for, among other marked qualities, he -possessed the unerring instinct of the snob which made him select for -his friends those whose names or position might glorify his banal -insignificance--and his stories were vivid pictorial illustrations of -this useful worldly faculty. O'Malley listened with secret delight, -keeping a grave face and dropping in occasional innocent questions to -heighten the color or increase the output. Others in the circle responded -in kind, feeling the same chord vibrating in themselves. Even the priest, -like a repeating-gun, continually discharged his little secret pride that -Byron had occupied a room in that Venetian monastery where he lived; and -at last O'Malley himself was conscious of an inclination to report his -own immense and recently discovered kinship with a greater soul and -consciousness than his own. After all, he reflected with a deep thrill -while he listened, the desire of the snob was but a crude and simple form -of the desire of the mystic:--to lose one's little self in a Self which -is greater! - -Then, weary of them all and their minute personal interests, he left -the smoking-room and joined the boy again, running absurd races with -him from stern to bow, playing hide-and-seek among the decks, even -playing shuffle-board together. They sweated in the blazing sun and -watched the dance of the sea; caught the wind in their faces with a shout -of joy, or with pointing fingers followed the changing outlines of the -rare, soft clouds that sailed the world of blue above them. There was no -speech between them, and both felt that other things, invisible, swift, -and spirit-footed, whose home is just beyond the edge of life as the -senses report life, played wildly with them. The smoking-room then, -with its occupants so greedy for the things that money connotes--the -furs, champagne, cigars, and heavy possessions that were symbols of the -personal aggrandizement they sought and valued--seemed to the -Irishman like a charnel-house where those about to die sat making -inventories in blind pride of the things they must leave behind. - -It was, indeed, a contrast of Death and Life. For beside him, with -that playing, silent boy, coursed the power of transforming loveliness -which had breathed over the world before her surface knew this swarming -race of men. The life of the Earth knew no need of outward -acquisition, possessing all things so completely in herself. And he--he -was her child--O glory! Joy passing belief! - -"Oh!" he cried once with passion, turning to the fair-haired figure of -youth who stood with him in the bows, meeting the soft wind,--"Oh, -to have heard the trees whispering together in the youth of the world, -and felt one of the earliest winds that ever blew across the cooling -seas!" - -And the boy, not understanding the words, but responding with a -perfect naturalness to the emotion that drove them forth, seized his -hand and with an extraordinarily free motion as of flying, raced with -him down the decks, happy, laughing, hair loose over his face, and with -a singular action of the shoulders as though he somehow--cantered. -O'Malley remembered his vision of the Flying Shapes.... - -Toward the evening, however, the boy disappeared, keeping close to -his father's side, and after dinner both retired early to their cabin. - -And the ship, meanwhile, drew ever nearer to the haunted land. - - - - -XIX - -"Privacy is ignorance." - ---JOSIAH ROYCE - - -Somewhat after the manner of things suffered in vivid dreams, where -surprise is numbed and wonder becomes the perfect password, the Irishman -remembers the sequence of little events that filled the following day. - -Yet his excitement held nothing of the vicious fling of fever; it was -spread over the entire being rather than located hotly in the brain and -blood alone; and it "derived," as it were, from tracts of his personality -usually unstirred, atrophied indeed in most men, that connected him -as by a delicate network of feelers with Nature and the Earth. He came -gradually to feel them, as a man in certain abnormal conditions becomes -conscious of the bodily processes that customarily go on in himself -without definite recognition. - -Stahl could have told him, had he cared to seek the information, that -this fringe of wider consciousness, stretching to the stars and winds -and earth, was the very part that had caused his long unrest and -yearning--the part that knew the Earth as mother and sought the sweet -and savage freedom of what he called with the poverty of modern -terms--primitive. The channels leading toward a state of Cosmic -Consciousness, one with the Earth Life, were being now flushed and -sluiced by the forces emanating from the persons of his new companions. - -And as this new state slowly usurped command, the readjustment of -his spiritual economy thus involved, caused other portions of himself -to sink into temporary abeyance. While it alarmed him, it was too -delicious to resist. He made no real attempt to resist. Yet he knew full -well that the portion sinking thus out of sight was what folk with such -high pride call Reason, Judgment, Common Sense! - -In common with animal, bird, and insect life, all intimately close to -Nature, he began to feel as realities those subtle currents of the -Earth's personality by which the seals know direction in the depths of a -thousand-mile sea, by which the homing pigeons blaze trails through -space, birds fly south, the wild bees know their pathways, and all simple -life, from the Red Indian to the Red Ant, acknowledges the viewless -guidance of the mother's enveloping heart. The cosmic life ran through -his being, lighting signals, offering service, more--claiming leadership. - -With it, however, came no loss of individuality, but rather a powerful -increase of life by means of which for the first time he dreamed of a -fuller existence which should eventually harmonize and combine the -ancient simplicity of soul that claimed the Earth, with the modern -complexity which, indulged alone, rendered the world so ugly and -insignificant...! He experienced an immense, driving push upon what -Bergson has called the _elan vital_ of his being. - -The opening charge of his new discovery, however, was more than -disconcerting, and it is not surprising that he lost his balance. Its -attack and rush were overwhelming. Thus, it was a kind of exalted -speculative wonder lying behind his inner joy that caused his mistakes. -He had imagined, for instance, that the first sight of Greece would bring -some climax of revelation, making clear to what particular type of early -life the spirits of his companions conformed; more, that they would then -betray themselves to one and all for what they were in some effort to -escape, in some act of unrestraint, something, in a word, that would -explain themselves to the world of passengers, and focus them upon the -doctor's microscope forever. - -Yet when Greece showed her first fair rim of outline, his companions -still slept peacefully in their bunks. The anticipated _denouement_ did -not appear. Nothing happened. It was not the mere sight of so much land -lying upon the sea's cool cheek that could prove vital in an adventure -of such a kind. For the adventure remained spiritual. O'Malley had -merely confused two planes of consciousness. As usual, he saw the thing -"whole" in that extraordinary way to which his imagination alone held -the key; and hence his error. - -Yet the moment has ever remained for him one of vital, stirring -splendor, significant as life or death. He remembers that he was early -on deck and saw the dawn blow up softly from behind the islands with -a fresh, salt wind that blew at the same time like music into his very -heart. Golden clear it rose; and just below, like the petals of some -vast, archetypal flower that gave it birth, the low blue hills of coast -and island opened magically into blossom. The rocky cliffs of Mattapan -slipped past; the smooth, bare slopes of the ancient shore-line followed; -treeless peaks and shoulders, abrupt precipices, summits and ridges all -exquisitely rosy and alive. He had seen Greece before, yet never thus, -and the emotion that invaded every corner of his larger consciousness lay -infinitely deeper than any mere pseudo-classical thrill he had known in -previous years. He saw it, felt it, knew it from within, instead of as a -spectator from without. This dawn-mood of the Earth was also his own; -and upon his spirit, as upon her blue-crowned hills, lay the tide of high -light with its delicate swift blush. He saw it with her--through one of -her opened eyes. - -The hot hours the steamer lay in the Piraeus Harbor were wearisome, -the noise of loading and unloading cargo worse even than at Catania. -While the tourist passengers hurried fussily ashore, carrying guidebooks -and cameras, to chatter among the ruined temples, he walked the decks -alone, dreaming his great dream, conscious that he spun through leagues -of space with the great Being who more and more possessed him. Beyond -the shipping and the masts collected there from all the ports of the -Mediterranean and the Levant, he watched the train puffing slowly to -the station that lay in the shadow of Theseus' Temple, but his eyes at -the same tune strained across the haze toward Eleusis Bay, and while -his ears caught the tramping feet of the long Torchlight Procession, some -power of his remoter consciousness divined the forms of hovering gods, -expressions of his vast Mother's personality with which, in worship, this -ancient people had believed it possible to merge themselves. The -significant truths that lay behind the higher Mysteries, degraded since -because forgotten and misinterpreted, trooped powerfully down into his -mind. For the supreme act of this profound cult, denied by a grosser age -that seeks to telephone to heaven, deeming itself thereby "advanced," lay -in the union of the disciple with his god, the god he worshipped all his -life, and into whose Person he slipped finally at death by a kind of -marriage rite. - -"The gods!" ran again through his mind with passion and delight, as -the letter of his early studies returned upon him, accompanied now for -the first time by the in-living spirit that interpreted them. "The -gods!--Moods of her giant life, manifestations of her spreading -Consciousness pushed outwards, Powers of life and truth and beauty...!" - - * * * * * - -And, meanwhile, Dr. Stahl, sometimes from a distance, sometimes coming -close, kept over him a kind of half-paternal, half-professional -attendance, the Irishman accepting his ministrations without resentment, -almost with indifference. - -"I shall be on deck between two and three in the morning to see the -comet," the German observed to him casually toward evening as they -met on the bridge. "We may meet perhaps--" - -"All right, doctor; it's more than possible," replied O'Malley, realizing -how closely he was being watched. - -In his mind at the moment another sentence ran, the thought growing -stronger and stronger within him as the day declined: - -"It will come tonight--come as an inner catastrophe not unlike that -of death! I shall hear the call--to escape...." - -For he knew, as well as if it had been told to him in so many words, -that the sleep of his two companions all day was in the nature of a -preparation. The fluid projections of themselves were all the time active -elsewhere. Their bodies heavily slumbered; their spirits were out and -alert. Summoned forth by those strange and radiant evocative forces -that even in the dullest minds "Greece" stirs into life, they had -temporarily escaped. Again he saw those shapes of cloud and wind moving -with swift freedom over the long, bare hills. Again and again the image -returned. With the night a similar separation of the personality might -come to himself too. Stahl's warning passed in letters of fire across his -inner sight. With a relief that yet contained uneasiness he watched his -shambling figure disappear down the stairway. He was alone. - - - - -XX - -"To everything that a man does he must give his undivided attention or -his Ego. When he has done this, thoughts soon arise in him, or else a new -method of apprehension miraculously appears.... - -"Very remarkable it is that through this play of his personality man -first becomes aware of his specific freedom, and that it seems to him as -though he awaked out of a deep sleep as though he were only now at home -in the world, and as if the light of day were breaking now over his -interior life for the first time.... The substance of these impressions -which affect us we call Nature, and thus Nature stands in an immediate -relationship to those functions of our bodies which we call senses. -Unknown and mysterious relations of our body allow us to surmise unknown -and mysterious correlations with Nature, and therefore Nature is that -wondrous fellowship into which our bodies introduce us, and which we -learn to know through the mode of its constitutions and abilities." - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Sais_. Translated by U.C.B. - - -And so, at last, the darkness came, a starry darkness of soft blue -shadows and phosphorescent sea out of which the hills of the Cyclades -rose faint as pictures of floating smoke a wind might waft away like -flowers to the sky. - -The plains of Marathon lay far astern, blushing faintly with their -scarlet tamarisk blossoms. The strange purple glow of sunset upon -Hymettus had long since faded. A hush grew over the sea, now a -marvelous cobalt blue. The earth, gently sleeping, manifested dreamily. -Into the subconscious state passed one half of her huge, gentle life. - -The Irishman, responding to the eternal spell of her dream-state, -experienced in quite a new way the magic of her Night-Mood. He found -it more difficult than ever to realize as separate entities the little -things that moved about through the upper surface of her darkness. -Wings of silver, powerfully whirring, swept his soul onwards to another -place--toward Home. - -And the two worlds intermingled oddly. These little separate "outer -things" going to and fro so busily became as symbols more or less vital, -more or less transparent. They varied according to their simplicity. Some -of them were channels that led directly where he was going; others, -again, had lost all connection with their vital source and center of -existence. To the former belonged the sailors, children, the tired birds -that rested on the ship as they journeyed northwards, swallows, doves, -and little travelers with breasts of spotted yellow that nested in the -rigging; even, in a measure, the gentle, brown-eyed priest; but to the -latter, the noisy, vulgar, beer-drinking tourists, and, especially, -the fur-merchant.... Stahl, interpreter and intermediary, hovered -between--incarnate compromise. - -Escaping from everybody, at length, he made his way into the bows; there, -covered by the stars, he waited. And the thing he waited for--he felt it -coming over him with a kind of massive sensation as little local as heat -or cold--was that disentanglement of a part of his personality from the -rest against which Stahl had warned him. That portion of his complex -personality in which resided desire and longing, matured during these -many years of poignant nostalgia, was now slowly and deliberately -loosening out from the parent center. It was the vehicle of his _Urwelt_ -yearnings; and the _Urwelt_ was about to draw it forth. The Call -was on its way. - -Hereabouts, then, near the Isles of Greece, lay a channel to the Earth's -far youth, a channel for some reason still unclosed. His companions -knew it; he, too, had half divined it. The increased psychic activity of -all three as they approached Greece seemed explained. The sign--would -it be through hearing, sight, or touch?--would shortly come that should -convince. - -That very afternoon Stahl had said--"Greece will betray them," and -he had asked: "Their true form and type?" And for answer the old man -did an expressive thing, far more convincing than words: he bent -forwards and downwards. He made as though to move a moment on all fours. - -O'Malley remembered the brief and vital scene now. The word, however, -persistently refused to come into his mind. Because the word was really -inadequate, describing but partially a form and outline symbolical of far -more,--a measure of Nature and Deity alike. - -And so, as a man dreading the entrance to a great adventure that he -yet desires, the Irishman waited there alone beneath the cloud of -night.... Soft threads of star-gold, trailing the sea, wove with the -darkness a veil that hid from his eyes the world of crude effects. All -memory of the casual realities of modern life that so distressed his -soul, fled far away. The archetypal world, soul of the Earth, swam close -about him, enormous and utterly simple. He seemed alone in some hollow of -the night which Time had overlooked, and where the powers of sea and -air held him in the stretch of their gigantic, changeless hands. In this -hollow lay the entrance to the channel down which he presently might -flash back to that primal Garden of the Earth's first beauty--her Golden -Age... down which, at any rate, the authoritative Call he awaited was -to come.... "Oh! what a power has white simplicity!" - -Wings from the past, serene and tranquil, bore him toward this ancient -peace where echoes of life's brazen clash today could never enter. -Ages before Greece, of course, it had flourished, yet Greece had caught -some flying remnant ere it left the world of men, and for a period had -striven to renew its life, though by poetry but half believed. Over the -vales and hills of Hellas this mood had lingered bravely for a while, -then passed away forever ... and those who dreamed of its remembrance -remain homeless and lonely, seeking it ever again in vain, lost citizens, -rejected by the cycles of vainer life and action that succeeded. - -The Spirit of the Earth, yes, whispered in his ears as he waited covered -by the night and stars. She called him, as though across all the forests -on her breast the long sweet winds went whispering his name. Lying -there upon the coils of thick and tarry rope, the _Urwelt_ caught him -back with her splendid passion. Currents of Earth life, quasi-deific, -gentle as the hands of little children, tugged softly at this loosening -portion of his Self, urging his very lips, as it were, once more to the -mighty Mother's breasts. Again he saw those cloud-like shapes careering -over long, bare hills ... and almost knew himself among them as they -raced with streaming winds ... free, ancient comrades among whom he was -no longer alien and outcast, including his two companions of the steamer. -The early memory of the Earth became his own; as a part of her, he -shared it too. - -The _Urwelt_ closed magnificently about him. Vast shapes of power and -beauty, other than human, once his comrades thus, but since withdrawn -because denied by a pettier age, moved up, huge and dim, across the -sham barriers of time and space, singing the great Earth-Song of welcome -in his ears. The whisper grew awfully.... The Spirit of the Earth -flew close and called upon him with a shout...! - -Then, out of this amazing reverie, he woke abruptly to the consciousness -that some one was approaching him stealthily, yet with speed, through the -darkness. With a start he sat up, peering about him. There was dew on his -clothes and hair. The stars, he saw, had shifted their positions. - -He heard the surge of the water from the vessel's bows below. The -line of the shore lay close on either side. Overhead he saw the black -threads of rigging, quivering with the movement of the ship; the swaying -mast-head light; the dim, round funnels; the confused shadows where -the boats swung--and nearer, moving between the ropes and windlasses, -this hurrying figure whose approach had disturbed him in his gorgeous -dream. - -And O'Malley divined at once that, though in one sense a portion of his -dream, it belonged outwardly to the same world as this long dark steamer -that trailed after him across the sea. A piece of his vision, as it -were, had broken off and remained in the cruder world wherein his body -lay upon these tarry ropes. The boy came up and stood a moment by -his side in silence, then, stooping to the level of his head, he spoke:-- - -"Come," he said in low tones of joy; "come! We wait long for you -already!" - -The words, like music, floated over the sea, as O'Malley took the -outstretched hand and suffered himself to be led quickly toward the -lower deck. He walked at first as in a dream continued after waking; -more than once it seemed as though they stepped together from the -boards and moved through space toward the line of peaked hills that -fringed the steamer's course so close. For through the salt night air ran -a perfume that suggested flowers, earth, and woods, and there seemed -no break in the platforms of darkness that knit sea and shore to the very -substance of the vessel. - - - - -XXI - - -The lights in the saloon were out, the smoking-room empty, the -passengers in bed. The ship seemed entirely deserted. Only, on the -bridge, the shadow of the first officer paced quietly to and fro. Then, -suddenly, as they approached the stern, O'Malley discerned anther -figure, huge and motionless, against the background of phosphorescent -foam; and at the first glance it was exactly as though he had detached -from the background of his mind one of those Flying Outlines upon -the hills--and caught it there, arrested visibly at last. - -He moved along, fairly sure of himself, yet with a tumult of confused -sensations, as if consciousness were transferring itself now more rapidly -to that portion of him which sought to escape. - -Leaning forward, in a stooping posture over the bulwarks, wrapped in the -flowing cape he sometimes wore, the man's back and shoulders married so -intimately with the night that it was hard to determine the dividing line -between the two. So much more of the deck behind him, and of the sky -immediately beyond his neck, was obliterated than by any possible human -outline. Whether owing to obliquity of disturbed vision, tricks of -shadow, or movement of the vessel between the stars and foam, the -Irishman saw these singular emanations spread about him into space. He -saw them this time directly. And more than ever before they seemed in -some way right and comely--true. They were in no sense monstrous; they -reported beauty, though a beauty cloaked in power. - -And, watching him, O'Malley felt that this loosening portion of himself, -as once before in the little cabin, likewise began to grow and spread. -Within some ancient fold of the Earth's dream-consciousness they both lay -caught. In some mighty Dream of her planetary Spirit, dim, immense, -slow-moving, they played their parts of wonder. Already they lay close -enough to share the currents of her subconscious activities. And the -dream, as she turned in her vast, spatial sleep, was a dream of a time -long gone. - -Here, amid the loneliness of deserted deck and night, this illusion of -bulk was more than ever before outwardly impressive, and as he yielded -to the persuasion of the boy's hand, he was conscious of a sudden wild -inclination to use his own arms and legs in a way he had never before -known or dreamed of, yet that seemed curiously familiar. The balance -and adjustment of his physical frame sought to shift and alter; neck and -shoulders, as it were, urged forward; there came a singular pricking in -the loins, a rising of the back, a thrusting up and outwards of the -chest. He felt that something grew behind him with a power that sought to -impel or drive him in advance and out across the world at a terrific -gait; and the hearing of his ears became of a sudden intensely acute. -While his body moved ordinarily, he knew that a part of him that was not -body moved--otherwise, that he neither walked, ran, nor stepped upon -two feet, but--galloped. The motion proclaimed him kin with the flying -shapes upon the hills. At the heart of this portion which sought to -detach itself from his central personality--which, indeed, seemed -already half escaped--he cantered. - -The experience lasted but a second--this swift, free motion of the -escaping Double--then passed away like those flashes of memory that rise -and vanish again before they can be seized for examination. He shook -himself free of the unaccountable obsession, and with the effort of -returning to the actual present, the passing-outwards was temporarily -checked. And it was then, just as he held himself in hand again, that -glancing sideways, he became aware that the boy beside him had, like -his parent, also changed--grown large and shadowy with a similar -suggestion of another splendid outline. The extension already half -accomplished in himself and fully accomplished in the father, was in -process of accomplishment in the smaller figure of the son. Clothed in -the emerged true shape of their inner being they slowly revealed -themselves. It was as bewildering as watching death, and as stern and -beautiful. - -For the boy, still holding his hand, loped along beside him as though -the projection that emanated from him, grown almost physical, were -somehow difficult to manage. - -In the moment of nearer, smaller consciousness that yet remained to -him, O'Malley recalled the significant pantomime of Dr. Stahl two days -before in the cabin. It came with a rush of fire. The warning operated; -his caution instantly worked. He dropped the hand, let the clinging -fingers slip from his own, overcome by something that appalled. For -this, surely, was the inner catastrophe that he dreaded, the radical -internal dislocation of his personality that involved--death. The thing -that had happened, or was happening to these other two, was on the -edge of fulfillment in himself--before he was either ready or had -decided to accept it. - -At any rate he hesitated; and the hesitation, shifting his center of -consciousness back into his brain, checked and saved him. A confused -sense of forces settling back within himself followed; a kind of rush and -scuttle of moods and powers: and he remained temporarily master of -his being, recovering balance and command. Twice already--in that -cabin-scene, as also on the deck when Stahl had seized him--the -moment had come close. Now, again, had he kept hold of the boy's -grasp, that inner transformation, which should later become externalized, -must have completed itself. - -"No, no!" he tried to cry aloud, "for I'm not yet ready!" But his voice -rose scarcely above a whisper. The decision of his will, however, had -produced the desired result. The "illusion," so strangely born, had -passed, at any rate for the time. He knew once more the glory of the -steadfast stars, realized that he walked normally upon a steamer's deck, -heard with welcome the surge of the sea below, and felt the peace of this -calm southern night as they coasted with two hundred sleeping tourists -between the islands and the Grecian mainland.... He remembered the -fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the Canadian drummer.... - -It seemed his feet half tripped, or at least that he put out a hand to -steady himself against the ship's long roll, for the pair of them moved -up to the big man's side with a curious, rushing motion that brought -them all together with a mild collision. And the boy laughed merrily, -his laughter like singing half completed. O'Malley remembers the little -detail, because it serves to show that he was yet still in a state of -intensified consciousness, far above the normal level. It was still "like -walking in my sleep or acting out some splendid dream," as he put it -in his written version. "Half out of my body, if you like, though in no -sense of the words at all half out of my mind!" - - - - -XXII - - -What followed he relates with passion, half confused. Without speaking -the big Russian turned his head by way of welcome, and O'Malley saw that -the proportions of it were magnificent like a fragment of the night and -sky. Though too dark to read the actual expression in the eyes, he -detected their gleam of joy and splendor. The whole presentment of the -man was impressive beyond any words that he could find. Massive, yet -charged with swift and alert vitality, he reared there through the night, -his inner self now toweringly manifested. At any other time, and without -the preparation already undergone, the sight might almost have terrified; -now it only uplifted. For in similar fashion, though lesser in degree, -because the mold was smaller, and hesitation checked it, this very -transformation had been going forward within himself. - -The three of them leaned there upon the rails, rails oddly dwindled -now to the size of a toy steamer, while thus the spirit of the dreaming -Earth swam round and through them, awful in power, yet at the same -time gentle, winning, seductive as wild flowers in the spring. And it was -this delicate, hair-like touch of delight, magical with a supreme and -utterly simple innocence, that made the grandeur of the whole experience -still easily manageable, and terror in it all unknown. - -The Irishman stood on the outside, toward the vessel's stern, next -him the father, beyond, the boy. They touched. A current like a river in -flood swept through all three. - -He, too, was caught within those visible extensions of their -personalities; all again, caught within the consciousness of the Earth. -Across the sea they gazed together in silence--waiting. - -It was the Oro passage, where the mainland hills on the west and the Isle -of Tenos on the east draw close together, and the steamer passes for -several miles so near to Greece that the boom of surf upon the shore is -audible. That night, however, the sea lay too still for surf; it -whispered softly in its sleep; and in its sleep, too, listened. They -heard its multitudinous rush of voices as the surge below raced by--a -giant frieze in which the phosphorescence painted dancing forms and -palely luminous faces. Unsubstantial shapes of foam held hands in -continuous array below the waves, lit by soft-sea-lanterns strung -together along the steamer's sides. - -Yet it was not these glimmering shapes the three of them watched, thus -intently silent. The lens of yearning focused not in sight. Down the -great channel at whose opening they stood, leading straight to the -Earth's old central heart, the message of communion would not be a -visual one. The sensitive fringe of their stretched personalities, -contacting thus actually the consciousness of the planet-soul, would -quiver to a reaction of another kind. This point of union, already -affected, would presently report itself, unmistakably, yet not to the -eyes. The increased acuteness of the Irishman's hearing--a kind of -interior hearing--quickly supplied the key. It was that all -three--listened. - -Some primitive sound of Earth would presently vibrate through their -extended beings with an authoritative sweet thunder not to be denied. -By a Voice, a Call, the Earth would tell them that she heard; that -lovingly she was aware of their presence in her heart. She would call -them, with the voice of _one of their own kind_. - -How strange it all was! Enormous in conception, enormous in distance, -scope, stretch! Yet so tiny, intimate, sweet! And this vast splendor was -to report itself by one of the insignificant little channels by which -men, locked in cramped physical bodies, interpret the giant universe--a -trivial sense-impression! That so terrible a communication could reach -the soul via the quivering of a wee material nerve was on a par with that -other grave splendor--that God can exist in the heart of a child. - -Thus, dimly, yet with an authority that shakes the soul, may little -human hearts divine the Immensities that travel with a thunder of great -glory close about their daily life. Through regions of their subliminal -consciousness, which transcends the restricted physical expression of it -called personality as the moisture of the world transcends a drop of -water, deific presences pass grandly to and fro. - -For here, to this wild-hearted Irishman with the forbidden strain of -the _Urmensch_ in his blood, came the sharp and instant revelation that -the Consciousness is not contained skin-tight around the body. It spread -enormously about him, remote, extended; and in some distant tract of -it this strange occurrence took place. The idea of distance and -extension, of course, were merely intellectual concepts, like that of -Time. For what happened, happened near and close, beside, _within_ his -actual physical person. That physical person, with its brain, however, he -realized, was but a fragment of his total Self. A broken piece of the -occurrence filtered through from beyond and fell upon the deck at his -feet. The rest he divined, seeing it whole. Only the little bit, however, -has he found the language to describe. - -And that for which all three listened was already on the way. Forever -it had been "happening," yet only reached them now because they were -ready and open to it. Events upon the physical plane, he grasped, -represented the last feeble expression of things that had happened -interiorly with a vaster power long ago--and are ever happening still. -This Sound they listened for, coming from the Spirit of the Earth, lay -ever close to men's ears, divinely sweet and splendid. It seemed born -somewhere in the heart of the blue gloom that draped the hills of Greece. -Thence, across the peaked mountains, stretched the immense pipe of -starry darkness that carried it toward them as along a channel. Made -possible of approach by the ancient passion of beauty that Greece once -knew, it ran down upon the world into their hearts, direct from the -Being of the Earth. - -With a sudden rush, it grew nearer, swelling with a draught of sound -that sucked whole spaces of sky and sea and stars with it. It emerged. -They heard, all three. - -Above the pulse and tremble of the steamer's engines, above the -surge and gurgle of the sea, a cry swept toward them from the shore. -Long-drawn, sweetly-penetrating, yet with some strident accent of power -and command, this voice of Earth rushed upon them over the quiet -water--then died away again among the mountains and the night. Its -passage through the sky was torrential. The whole pouring flood of it -dipped back with abrupt swiftness into silence. The Irishman understood -that but an echo of its main volume had come through. - -A deep, convulsive movement ran over the great body at his side, and -at once communicated itself to the boy beyond. Father and son -straightened up abruptly as though the same force lifted both; then -stretched down and forwards over the bulwarks. They seemed to shake -themselves free of something. Neither spoke. Something utterly -overwhelming lay in that moment. For the cry was at once of enchanting -sweetness, yet with a deep and dreadful authority that overpowered. It -invited the very soul. - -A moment of silence followed, and the cry was then repeated, thinner, -fainter, already further away. It seemed withdrawn, sunk more deeply -into the night, higher up, too, floating away northwards into remoter -vales and glens that lay beyond the shore-line. Though still a single -cry, there were distinct breaks of utterance in it this time, as of -words. It was, of a kind--speech: a Message, a Summons, a Command that -somehow held entreaty at its heart. - -And this time the appeal in it was irresistible. Father and son started -forwards as though deliberately pulled; while from himself shot outwards -that loosening portion of his being that all the evening had sought -release. The vehicle of his yearnings, passionately summoned, leaped to -the ancient call of the Earth's eternally young life. This vital essence -of his personality, volatile as air and fierce as lightning, flashed -outwards from its hidden prison where it lay choked and smothered by the -weights and measures of modern life. For the beauty and splendor of that -far voice wrung his very heart and set it free. He knew a quasi-physical -wrench of detachment. A wild and tameless glory fused the fastenings -of ages. - -Only the motionless solidity of the great figure beside him prevented -somehow the complete escape, and made him understand that the Call -just then was not for all three of them, especially not for himself. The -parent rose beside him, massive and stable, secure as the hills which -were his true home, and the boy broke suddenly into happy speech which -was wild and singing. - -He looked up swiftly into his parent's steady visage. - -"Father!" he cried in tones that merged half with the wind, half with -the sea, "it is his voice! Chiron calls--!" His eyes shone like stars, -his young face was alight with joy and passion.--"Go, father, _you_, -or--" - -He stopped an instant, catching the Irishman's eyes upon his own -across the form between them. - -"--or you!" he added with a laughter of delight; "_you_ go!" - -The big figure straightened up, standing back a pace from the rails. -A low sound rolled from him that was like an echo of thunder among -hills. With slow, laborious distinctness it broke off into fragments that -were words, with great difficulty uttered, but with a final authority -that rendered them command. - -"No," O'Malley heard, "you--first. And--carry word--that we--are--on -the way." Staring out across the sea and sky he boomed it deeply. -"You--first. We--follow--!" And the speech seemed to flow from the entire -surface of his body rather than from the lips alone. The sea and air -mothered the syllables. Thus might the Night herself have spoken. - -_Chiron_! The word, with its clue of explanation, flamed about him -with a roar. Was this, then, the type of cosmic life to which his -companions, and himself with them, inwardly approximated...? - -The same instant, before O'Malley could move a muscle to prevent -it, the boy climbed the rails with an easy, vaulting motion that was -swift yet oddly spread, and dropped straight down into the sea. He fell; -and as he fell it was as if the passage through the air drew out a part -of him again like smoke. Whether it was due to the flying cloak, or to -some dim wizardry of the shadows, there grew over him an instantaneous -transformation of outline that was far more marked than anything before. -For as the steamer drew onwards, and the body thus passed in its downward -flight close beneath O'Malley's eyes, he saw that the boy was making the -first preparatory motions of swimming,--movements, however, that were not -the horizontal sweep of a pair of human arms, but rather the vertical -strokes of a swimming animal. He pawed the air. - -The surprise of the whole unexpected thing came upon him with a crash -that brought him back effectually again into himself. That part of him, -already half emerged in similar escape, now flashed back sheath-like -within him. The inner catastrophe he dreaded while desiring it, had -not yet completed itself. - -He heard no splash, for the ship was high out of the water, and the -place where the body met the sea already lay far astern; but when the -momentary arrest of his faculties had passed and he found his voice to -cry for help, the father turned upon him like a lion and clapped a great, -encompassing hand upon his mouth. - -"Quiet!" his deep voice boomed. "It is well--and he--is--safe." - -And across the huge and simple visage ran an expression of such supreme -happiness, while in his act and gesture lay such convincing power, that -the Irishman felt himself overborne and forced to acknowledge another -standard of authority that somehow made the whole thing right. To cry -"man overboard," to stop the ship, throw life-buoys and the rest, was not -only unnecessary, but foolish. The boy was safe; it was well with him; he -was not "lost"... - -"See," said the parent's deep voice, breaking in upon his thoughts as -he drew him to one side with a certain vehemence, "See!" - -He pointed downwards. And there, between them, half in the scuppers, -against their very feet, lay the huddled body upon the deck, the -arms outstretched, the face turned upwards to the stars. - - * * * * * - -The bewilderment that followed was like the confusion which exists -between two states of consciousness when the mind passes from sleep -to waking, or _vice versa_. O'Malley lost that power of attention which -enables a man to concentrate on details sufficiently to recall their -exact sequence afterwards with certainty. - -Two things, however, stood out and he tells them briefly enough: first, -that the joy upon the father's face rendered an offer of sympathy -ludicrous; secondly, that Dr. Stahl was again upon the scene with a -promptness which proved him to have been close at hand all the time. - -It was between two and three in the morning, the rest of the passengers -asleep still, but Captain Burgenfelder and the first officer appeared -soon after and an orderly record of the affair was drawn up formally. The -depositions of the father and of himself were duly taken down in -writing, witnessed, and all the rest. - -The scene in the doctor's cabin remains vividly in his mind: the huge -Russian standing by the door--for he refused a seat--incongruously -smiling in contrast to the general gravity, his mind obviously brought -by an effort of concentration to each question; the others seated round -the desk some distance away, leaving him in a space by himself; the -scratching of the doctor's pointed pen; the still, young outline -underneath the canvas all through the long pantomime, lying upon a couch -at the back where the shadows gathered thickly. And then the gust of -fresh wind that came in with a little song as they opened the door at -the end, and saw the crimson dawn reflected in the dewy, shining boards -of the deck. The father, throwing the Irishman a significant and curious -glance, was out to join it on the instant. - -Syncope, produced by excitement, cause unknown, was the scientific -verdict, and an immediate burial at sea the parent's wish. As the sun -rose over the highlands of Asia Minor it was carried into effect. - -But the father's eyes followed not the drop. They gazed with rapt, -intent expression in another direction where the shafts of sunrise sped -across the sea toward the glens and dales of distant Pelion. At the sound -of the plunge he did not even turn his eyes. He pointed, gathering -O'Malley somehow into the gesture, across the AEgean Sea to where the -shores of north-western Arcadia lay below the horizon, raised his arms -with a huge sweep of welcome to the brightening sky, then turned and -went below without a single word. - -For a few minutes, puzzled and perhaps a little awed, the group of -sailors and ship's officers remained standing with bared heads, then -disappeared silently in their turn, leaving the decks to the sunrise and -the wind. - - - - -XXIII - - -But O'Malley did not immediately return to his own cabin; he yielded to -Dr. Stahl's persuasion and dropped into the armchair he had already -occupied more than once, watching his companion's preparations with the -lamp and coffeepot. - -With his eyes, that is, he watched, staring, as men say, absent-mindedly; -for the fact was, only a little bit of him hovered there about his -weary physical frame. The rest of him was off somewhere else across the -threshold--subliminal: below, with the Russian, beyond with the -traveling spirit of the boy; but the major portion, out deep in space, -reclaimed by the Earth. - -So, at least, it felt; for the circulation of blood in his brain ran low -and physical sensation there was almost none. The driving impulse upon -the outlying tracts of consciousness usually submerged had been -tremendous. - -"That time," he heard Stahl saying in an oddly distant voice from -across the cabin, "you were nearly--out--" - -"You heard? You saw it all?" he murmured as in half-sleep. For it was -an effort to focus his mind even upon simple words. - -The reply he hardly caught, though he felt the significant stare of the -man's eye upon him and divined the shaking of his head. His life still -pulsed and throbbed far away outside his normal self. Complete return -was difficult. He felt all over: with the wind and hills and sea, all his -little personal sensations tucked away and absorbed into Nature. In the -Earth he lay, pervading her whole surface, still sharing her vaster life. -With her he moved, as with a greater, higher, and more harmonious -creation than himself. In large measure the cosmic instincts still swept -these quickened fringes of his deep subconscious personality. - -"You know them now for what they are," he heard the doctor saying at the -end of much else he had entirely missed. "The father will be the next to -go, and then--yourself. I warn you before it is too late. Beware! -And--resist!" - -His thoughts, and with them those subtle energies of the soul that are -the vehicles of thought, followed where the boy had gone. Deep streams of -longing swept him. The journey of that spirit, so singularly released, -drew half his forces after it. Thither the bereaved parent and himself -were also bound; and the lonely incompleteness of his life lay wholly now -explained. That cry within the dawn, though actually it had been calling -always, had at last reached him; hitherto he had caught only -misinterpreted echoes of it. From the narrow body it had called him -forth. Another moment and he would have known complete emancipation; and -never could he forget that glorious sensation as the vital essence tasted -half release. Next time the process should complete itself, and he -would--go! - -"Drink this," he heard abruptly in Stahl's grating voice, and saw him -cross the cabin with a cup of steaming coffee. "Concentrate your mind -now upon the things about you here. Return to the present. And tell me, -too, if you can bring yourself to do so," he added, stooping over -him with the cup, "a little of what you experienced. The return, I know, -is pain. But try--try--" - -"Like a little bit of death, yes," murmured the Irishman. "I feel caught -again and caged--small." He could have wept. This ugly little life! - -"Because you've tasted a moment of genuine cosmic consciousness and now -you feel the limitations of normal personality," Stahl added, more -soothingly. He sat down beside him and sipped his own coffee. - -"Dispersed about the whole earth I felt, deliciously extended and -alive," O'Malley whispered with a faint shiver as he glanced about the -little cabin, noticing the small windows and shut door. "Upholstery" -oppressed him. "Now I'm back in prison again." - -There was silence for a moment. Then presently the doctor spoke, as -though he thought aloud, expecting no reply. - -"All great emotions," he said in lowered tones, "tap the extensions of -the personality we now call subconscious, and a man in anger, in love, in -ecstasy of any kind is greater than he knows. But to you has come, -perhaps, the greatest form of all--a definite and instant merging with -the being of the Earth herself. You reached the point where you _felt_ -the spirit of the planet's life. You almost crossed the threshold--your -extension edged into her own. She bruised you, and you knew--" - -"'Bruised'?" he asked, startled at the singular expression into closer -hearing. - -"We are not 'aware' of our interior," he answered, smiling a little, -"until something goes wrong and the attention is focused. A keen -sensation--pain--and you become aware. Subconscious processes then -become consciously recognized. I bruise your lung for instance; you -become conscious of that lung for the first time, and feel it. You gather -it up from the general subconscious background into acute personal -consciousness. Similarly, a word or mood may sting and stimulate some -phase of your consciousness usually too remote to be recognized. Last -night--regions of your extended Self, too distant for most men to realize -their existence at all, contacted the consciousness of the Earth herself. -She bruised you, and _via_ that bruise caught you up into her greater -Self. You experienced a genuine cosmic reaction." - -O'Malley listened, though hardly to the actual words. Behind the -speech, which was in difficult German for one thing, his mind heard -the rushing past of this man's ideas. They moved together along the -same stream of thought, and the Irishman knew that what he thus heard -was true, at any rate, for himself. And at the same time he recognized -with admiration the skill with which this scientific mystic of a -_Schiffsarzt_ sought to lead him back into the safer regions of his -normal state. Stahl did not now oppose or deny. Catching the wave of the -Celt's experience, he let his thought run sympathetically with it, -alongside, as it were, guiding gently and insinuatingly down to earth -again. - -And the result justified this cunning wisdom; O'Malley returned to -the common world by degrees. For it was enchanting to find his amazing -adventure explained even in this partial, speculative way. Who else -among his acquaintances would have listened at all, much less admitted -its possibility? - -"But, why in particular _me_?" he asked. "Can't everybody know these -cosmic reactions you speak of?" It was his intellect that asked the -foolish question. His whole Self knew the answer beforehand. - -"Because," replied the doctor, tapping his saucer to emphasize each -word, "in some way you have retained an almost unbelievable simplicity -of heart--an innocence singularly undefiled--a sort of primal, -spontaneous innocence that has kept you clean and open. I venture even to -suggest that shame, as most men know it, has never come to you at all." - -The words sank down into him. Passing the intellect that would have -criticized, they nested deep within where the intuition knew them true. -Behind the clumsy language that is, he caught the thought. - -"As if I were a saint!" he laughed faintly. - -Stahl shook his head. "Rather, because you live detached," he replied, -"and have never identified your Self with the rubbish of life. The -channels in you are still open to these tides of larger existence. I wish -I had your courage." - -"While others--?" - -The German hesitated a moment. "Most men," he said, choosing his words -with evident care, "are too grossly organized to be aware that these -reactions of a wider consciousness can be possible at all. Their minute -normal Self they mistake for the whole, hence denying even the -experiences of others. 'Our actual personality may be something -considerably unlike that conception of it which is based on our present -terrestrial consciousness--a form of consciousness suited to, and -developed by, our temporary existence here, _but not necessarily more -than a fraction of our total self_. It is quite credible that our entire -personality is never terrestrially manifest.'" Obviously he quoted. The -Irishman had read the words somewhere. He came back more and more into -the world--correlated, that is, the subconscious with the conscious. - -"Yet consciousness apart from the brain is inconceivable," he interposed, -more to hear the reply than to express a conviction. - -Whether Stahl divined his intention or not, he gave no sign. - -"'We cannot say with any security that the stuff called brain is the -only conceivable machinery which mind and consciousness are able to -utilize: though it is true that we know no other.'" The last phrase he -repeated: "'though it is true that we know no other.'" - -O'Malley sank deeper into his chair, making no reply. His mind clutched -at the words "too grossly organized," and his thoughts ran back for a -moment to his daily life in London. He pictured his friends and -acquaintances there; the men at his club, at dinner parties, in the -parks, at theatres; he heard their talk--shooting--destruction of -exquisite life; horses, politics, women, and the rest; yet good, honest, -lovable fellows all. But how did they breathe in so small a world at all? -Practical-minded specimens of the greatest civilization ever known! He -recalled the heavy, dazed expression on the faces of one or two to whom -he had sometimes dared to speak of those wider realms that were so -familiar to himself.... - -"'Though it is true that we know no other,'" he heard Stahl repeating -slowly as he looked down into his cup and stirred the dregs. - -Then, suddenly, the doctor rose and came over to his side. His eyes -twinkled, and he rubbed his hands vigorously together as he spoke. He -laughed. - -"For instance, I have no longer now the consciousness of that coffee -I have just swallowed," he exclaimed, "yet, if it disagreed with me, my -consciousness of it would return." - -"The abnormal states you mean are a symptom of disorder then?" the -Irishman asked, following the analogy. - -"At present, yes," was the reply, "and will remain so until their -correlation with the smaller conscious Self is better understood. These -belligerent Powers of the larger Consciousness are apt to overwhelm as -yet. That time, perhaps, is coming. Already a few here and there have -guessed that the states we call hysteria and insanity, conditions of -trance, hypnotism, and the like, are not too satisfactorily explained." -He peered down at his companion. "If I could study your Self at close -quarters for a few years," he added significantly, "and under various -conditions, I might teach the world!" - -"Thank you!" cried the Irishman, now wholly returned into his ordinary -self. He could think of nothing else to say, yet he meant the words and -gave them vital meaning. He moved across to another chair. Lighting a -cigarette, he puffed out clouds of smoke. He did not desire to be caught -again beneath this man's microscope. And in his mind he had a sudden -picture of the speculative and experimenting doctor being "requested to -sever his connection" with the great Hospital for the sake of the -latter's reputation. But Stahl, in no way offended, was following his own -thoughts aloud, half speaking to himself. - -"... For a being organized as you are, more active in the outlying -tracts of consciousness than in the centers lying nearer home,--a being -like yourself, I say, might become aware of Other Life and other -personalities even more advanced and highly organized than that of the -Earth." - -A strange excitement came upon him, making his eyes shine. He walked to -and fro, O'Malley watching him, a touch of alarm mingled with his -interest. - -"And to think of the great majority that denies because they are--dead!" -he cried. "Smothered! Undivining! Living in that uninspired fragment -which they deem the whole! Ah, my friend,"--and he came abruptly -nearer--"the pathos, the comedy, the pert self-sufficiency of their dull -pride, the crass stupidity and littleness of their denials, in the eyes -of those like ourselves who have actually known the passion of the larger -experience--! For all this modern talk about a Subliminal Self is woven -round a profoundly significant truth, a truth newly discovered and only -just beginning to be understood. We are much greater than we know, and -there is a vast subconscious part of us. But, what is more important -still, there is a super-consciousness as well. The former represents -what the race has discarded; it is past; but the latter stands for what -it reaches out to in the future. The perfect man you dream of perhaps is -he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast -amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value -and will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and -waiting. But it is the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not -the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriously wait -upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism, and the rest." - -"One leads, though, to the other," interrupted O'Malley quickly. "It -is merely a question of the swing of the pendulum?" - -"Possibly," was the laconic reply. - -"They join hands, I mean, behind my back, as it were." - -"Possibly." - -"This stranger, then, may really lead me forward and not back?" - -"Possibly," again was all the answer that he got. - -For Stahl had stopped short, as though suddenly aware that he had -said too much, betraying himself in the sudden rush of interest and -excitement. The face for a moment had seemed quite young, but now -the flush faded, and the light died out from his eyes. O'Malley never -understood how the change came about so quickly, for in a moment, -it seemed, the doctor was calm again, quietly lighting one of his black -cigars over by the desk, peering at him half quizzingly, half mockingly -through the smoke. - -"So I urge you again," he was saying, as though the rest had been some -interlude that the Irishman had half imagined, "to proceed with the -caution of this sane majority, the caution that makes for safety. Your -friend, as I have already suggested to you, is a direct expression of the -cosmic life of the earth. Perhaps, you have guessed by now, the -particular type and form. Do not submit your inner life too completely to -his guidance. Contain your Self--and resist--while it is yet possible." - -And while he sat on there, sipping hot coffee, half listening to the -words that warned of danger while at the same time they cunningly -urged him forwards, it seemed that the dreams of childhood revived in -him with a power that obliterated this present day--the childhood, -however, not of his mere body, but of his spirit, when the world herself -was young.... He, too, had dwelt in Arcady, known the free life of -splendor and simplicity in some Saturnian Reign; for now this dream, -but half remembered, half believed, though eternally yearned for--dream -of a Golden Age untouched by Time, still there, still accessible, -still inhabited, was actually coming true. - -It surely was that old Garden of innocence and joy where the soul, -while all unvexed by a sham and superficial civilization of the mind, -might yet know growth--a realm half divined by saints and poets, but -to the gross majority forgotten or denied. - -The Simple Life! This new interpretation of it at first overwhelmed. -The eyes of his soul turned wild with glory; the passion that o'er-runs -the world in desolate places was his; his, too, the strength of rushing -rivers that coursed their parent's being. He shared the terror of the -mountains and the singing of the sweet Spring rains. The spread wonder -of the woods of the world lay imprisoned and explained in the daily -hurry of his very blood. He understood, because he felt, the power of -the ocean tides; and, flitting to and fro through the tenderer regions of -his extended Self, danced the fragrance of all the wild flowers that ever -blew. That strange allegory of man, the microcosm, and earth, the -macrocosm, became a sudden blazing reality. The feverish distress, -unrest, and vanity of modern life was due to the distance men had -traveled from the soul of the world, away from large simplicity into the -pettier state they deemed so proudly progress. - -Out of the transliminal depths of this newly awakened Consciousness -rose the pelt and thunder of these magical and enormous cosmic -sensations--the pulse and throb of the planetary life where his little -Self had fringed her own. Those untamed profundities in himself that -walked alone, companionless among modern men, suffering an eternal -nostalgia, at last knew the approach to satisfaction. For when the "inner -catastrophe" completed itself and escape should come--that transfer -of the conscious center across the threshold into this vaster region -stimulated by the Earth--all his longings would be housed at last like -homing birds, nested in the gentle places his yearnings all these years -had lovingly built for them--in a living Nature! The fever of modern -life, the torture and unrest of a false, external civilization that -trained the brain while it still left wars and baseness in the heart, -would drop from him like the symptoms of some fierce disease. The god of -speed and mechanism that ruled the world today, urging men at ninety -miles an hour to enter a Heaven where material gain was only a little -sublimated and not utterly denied, would pass for the nightmare that it -really was. In its place the cosmic life of undifferentiated simplicity, -clean and sweet and big, would hold his soul in the truly everlasting -arms. - -And that little German doctor, sitting yonder, enlightened yet afraid, -seeking an impossible compromise--Stahl could no more stop his going -than a fly could stop the rising of the Atlantic tides. - -Out of all this tumult of confused thought and feeling there rose then -the silver face of some forgotten and passionate loveliness. Apparently -it reached his lips, for he heard his own voice murmuring outside him -somewhere across the cabin:-- - -"The gods of Greece--and of the world--" - -Yet the instant words clothed it, the flashing glory went. The idea -plunged back out of sight--untranslatable in language. Thrilled and -sad, he lay back in his chair, watching the doctor and trying to focus -his mind upon what he was saying. But the lost idea still dived and -reared within him like a shining form, yet never showing more than -this radiant point above the surface. The passion and beauty of it...! -He tried no more to tie a label of modern words about its neck. He let -it swim and dive and leap within him uncaught. Only he understood -better why, close to Greece, his friends had betrayed their inner selves, -and why for the lesser of the two, whose bodily cage was not yet fully -clamped and barred by physical maturity, escape, or return rather, had -been possible, nay, had been inevitable. - - - - -XXIV - - -Stahl, he remembers, had been talking for a long time. The general sense -of what he said reached him, perhaps, but certainly not many of the -words. The doctor, it was clear, wished to coax from him the most -intimate description possible of his experience. He put things crudely -in order to challenge criticism, and thus to make his companion's reason -sit in judgment on his heart. If this visionary Celt would let his -intellect pass soberly and dissectingly upon these flaming states of -wider consciousness he had touched, the doctor would have data of real -value for his own purposes. - -But this discriminating analysis was precisely what the Irishman found -impossible. His soul was too "dispersed" to concentrate upon modern terms -and phrases. These in any case dealt only with the fragments of Self that -manifested through brain and body. The rest could be felt only, never -truly described. Since the beginning of the world such transcendental -experiences had never been translatable in the language of "common" -sense; and today, even, when a few daring minds sought a laborious -classification, straining the resources of psychology, the results were -little better than a rather enticing and suggestive confusion. - -In his written account, indeed, he gives no proper report of what Stahl -tried to say. A gaping hiatus appears in the manuscript, with only -asterisks and numbers that referred to pages of his tumbled notebooks. -Following these indications I came across the skeletons of ideas which -perhaps were the raw material, so to say, of these crude and speculative -statements that the German poured out at him across that cabin--blocks -of exaggeration he flung at him, in the hope of winning some critical -and intelligible response. Like the structure of some giant fairy-tale -they read--some toppling scaffolding that needed reduction in scale -before it could be focused for normal human sight. - -"Nature" was really alive for those who believed--and worshipped; for -worship was that state of consciousness which opens the sense and -provides the channel for this singular interior realization. In very -desolate and lonely places, unsmothered and unstained by men as they -exist today, such expressions of the Earth's stupendous, central vitality -were still possible.... The "Russian" himself was some such fragment, -some such cosmic being, strayed down among men in a form outwardly -human, and the Irishman had in his own wild, untamed heart those -same very tender and primitive possibilities which enabled him to know -and feel it. - -In the body, however, he was fenced off--without. Only by the -disentanglement of his primitive self from the modern development -which caged it, could he recover this strange lost Eden and taste in its -fullness the mother-life of the planetary consciousness which called him -back. This dissociation might be experienced temporarily as a subliminal -adventure; or permanently--in death. - -Here, it seemed, was a version of the profound mystical idea that a -man must lose his life to find it, and that the personal self must be -merged in a larger one to know peace--the incessant, burning nostalgia -that dwells in the heart of every religion known to men: escape from -the endless pain of futile personal ambitions and desires for external -things that are unquenchable because never possible of satisfaction. It -had never occurred to him before in so literal and simple a form. It -explained his sense of kinship with the earth and nature rather than -with men.... - -There followed, then, another note which the Irishman had also -omitted from his complete story as I found it--in this MS. that lay -among the dust and dinginess of the Paddington back-room like some -flaming gem in a refuse heap. It was brief but pregnant--the block of -another idea, Fechner's apparently, hurled at him by the little doctor. - -That, just as the body takes up the fact of the bruised lung into its -own general consciousness, lifting it thereby from the submerged, -unrealized state; and just as our human consciousness can be caught up -again as a part of the earth's; so, in turn, the Planet's own vast -personality is included in the collective consciousness of the entire -Universe--all steps and stages of advance to that final and august -Consciousnss of which they are fragments, projections, manifestations in -Time--GOD. - -And the immense conception, at any rate, gave him a curious, -flashing clue to that passionate inclusion which a higher form of -consciousness may feel for the countless lesser manifestations below it; -and so to that love for humanity as a whole that saviors feel.... - -Yet, out of all this deep flood of ideas and suggestions that somehow -poured about him from the mind of this self-contradictory German, -alternately scientist and mystic, O'Malley emerged with his own smaller -and vivid personal delight that he would presently himself--escape: -escape under the guidance of the big Russian into some remote corner -of his own extended Being, where he would enjoy a quasi-merging with -the Earth-life, and know subjectively at least the fruition of all his -yearnings. - -The doctor had phrased it once that a part of him fluid, etheric or -astral, malleable by desire, would escape and attain to this result. But, -after all, the separation of one portion of himself from the main -personality could only mean being conscious it: another part of it--in -a division usually submerged. - -As Stahl so crudely put it, the Earth had bruised him. He would know -in some little measure the tides of her own huge life, his longings, -loneliness, and nostalgia explained and satisfied. He would find that -fair old Garden. He might even know the lesser gods. - - * * * * * - -That afternoon at Smyrna the matter was officially reported, and so -officially done with. It caused little enough comment on the steamer. -The majority of the passengers had hardly noticed the boy at all, much -less his disappearance; and while many of them landed there for Ephesus, -still more left the ship next day at Constantinople. - -The big Russian, though he kept mostly to his own cabin, was closely -watched by the ship's officers, and O'Malley, too, realized that he was -under observation. But nothing happened; the emptied steamer pursued -her quiet way, and the Earth, unrealized by her teeming freight so busy -with their tiny personal aims, rushed forwards upon her glorious journey -through space. - -O'Malley alone realized her presence, aware that he rushed with her -amid a living universe. But he kept his new sensations to himself. The -remainder of the voyage, indeed, across the Black Sea _via_ Samsoun and -Trebizond, is hazy in his mind so far as practical details are concerned, -for he found himself in a dreamy state of deep peace and would sometimes -sit for hours in reverie, only reminded of the present by certain pricks -of annoyance from the outer world. He had returned, of course, to his own -stateroom, yet felt in such close sympathy with his companion that no -outward expression by way of confidence or explanation was necessary. In -their Subconsciousness they were together and at one. - -The pricks of annoyance came, as may be expected, chiefly from Dr. -Stahl, and took the form of variations of "I told you so." The man was -in a state of almost anger, caused half by disappointment, half by -unsatisfied curiosity. His cargo of oil and water would not mix, yet he -knew not which to throw overboard; here was another instance where -facts refused to tally with the beliefs dictated by sane reason; where -the dazzling speculations he played with threatened to win the day and -destroy the compromise his soul loved. - -The Irishman, however, did not resent his curiosity, though he made -no attempt to satisfy it. He allowed him to become authoritative and -professional, to treat him somewhat as a patient. What could it matter -to him, who in a few hours would land at Batoum and go off with his -guide and comrade to some place where--? The thought he could never -see completed in words, for he only knew that the fulfillment of the -adventure would take place--somewhere, somehow, somewhen--in that space -within the soul of which external space is but an image and a figure. -What takes place in the mind and heart are alone the true events; their -outward expression in the shifting and impermanent shapes of matter is -the least real thing in all the world. For him the experience would be -true, real, authoritative--fact in the deepest sense of the word. -Already he saw it "whole." - -Faith asks no travelers' questions--exact height of mountains, length -of rivers, distance from the sea, precise spelling of names, and so -forth. He felt--the quaint and striking simile is in the written -account--like a man hunting for a pillar-box in a strange city--absurdly -difficult to find, as though purposely concealed by the authorities amid -details of street and houses to which the eye is unaccustomed, yet really -close at hand all the time.... - -But at Trebizond, a few hours before Batoum, Dr. Stahl in his zealous -attentions went too far; for that evening he gave his "patient" a -sleeping-draught in his coffee that caused him to lie for twelve hours on -the cabin sofa, and when at length he woke toward noon, the Customs -officers had been aboard since nine o'clock, and most of the passengers -had already landed. - -Among them, leaving no message, the big Russian had also gone -ashore. And, though Stahl may have been actuated by the wisest and -kindest motives, he was not quite prepared for the novel experience with -which it provided him--namely, of hearing an angry Irishman saying -rapidly what he thought of him in a stream of eloquent language that -lasted nearly a quarter of an hour without a break! - - - - -XXV - - -Although Batoum is a small place, and the trains that leave it during -the day are few enough, O'Malley knew that to search for his friend by -the methods of the ordinary detective was useless. It would have been -also wrong. The man had gone deliberately, without attempting to say -good-bye--because, having come together in the real and inner sense, -real separation was not possible. The vital portion of their beings, -thought, feeling, and desire, were close and always would be. Their -bodies, busy at different points of the map among the casual realities -of external life, could make no change in that. And at the right moment -they would assuredly meet again to begin the promised journey. - -Thus, at least, in some fashion peculiarly his own, was the way the -Irishman felt; and this was why, after the first anger with his German -friend, he resigned himself patiently to the practical business he had in -hand. - -The little incident was characteristically revealing, and shows how -firmly rooted in his imaginative temperament was the belief, the -unalterable conviction rather, that his life operated upon an outer and -an inner plane simultaneously, the one ever reacting upon the other. It -was as if he were aware of two separate sets of faculties, subtly linked, -one carrying on the affairs of the physical man in the "practical" world, -the other dealing with the spiritual economy in the subconscious. To -attend to the latter alone was to be a useless dreamer among men, -unpractical, unbalanced; to neglect it wholly for the former was to be -crassly limited, but half alive; to combine the two in effective -co-operation was to achieve that high level of a successful personality, -which some perhaps term genius, some prophet, and others, saint. It -meant, at any rate, to have sources of inspiration within oneself. - -Thus he spent the day completing what was necessary for his simple -outfit, and put up for the night at one of the little hotels that spread -their tables invitingly upon the pavement, so that dinner may be enjoyed -in full view of one of the most picturesque streams of traffic it is -possible to see. - -The sultry, enervating heat of the day had passed and a cool breeze -came shorewards over the Black Sea. With a box of thin Russian -cigarettes before him he lingered over the golden Kakhetian wine and -watched the crowded street. Knowing enough of the language to bargain -smartly for his room, his pillows, sheets, and samovar, he yet could -scarcely compass conversation with the strangers about him. Of Russian -proper, besides, he heard little; there was a Babel of many tongues, -Armenian, Turkish, Georgian, explosive phrases of Swanetian, soft -gliding Persian words, and the sharp or guttural exclamations of the -big-voiced, giant fellows, all heavily armed, who belonged to the -bewildering tribes that dwelt among the mountains beyond. Occasionally -came a broken bit of French or German; but they strayed in, lost and -bizarre, as fragments from some distant or forgotten world. - -Down the pavement, jostling his elbows, strode the constant, gorgeous -procession of curious, wild, barbaric faces, bearded, with hooked -noses, flashing eyes, burkas flowing; cartridge-belts of silver and ivory -gleaming across chests in the glare of the electric light; bashliks of -white, black, and yellow wool upon the head, increasing the stature; -evil-looking Black Sea knives stuck in most belts, rifles swung across -great supple shoulders, long swords trailing; Turkish gypsies, dark and -furtive-eyed, walking softly in leather slippers--of endless and -fascinating variety, many colored and splendid, it all was. From time to -time a droschky with two horses, or a private carriage with three, -rattled noisily over the cobbles at a reckless pace, stopping with the -abruptness of a practiced skater; and officers with narrow belted waists -like those of women, their full-skirted cloaks reaching half-way down -high boots of shining leather, sprang out to pay the driver and take a -vacant table at his side; and once or twice a body of soldiers, several -hundred strong, singing the national songs with a full-throated vigor, -hoarse, wild, somehow half terrible, passed at a swinging gait away into -the darkness at the end of the street, the roar of their barbaric singing -dying away in the distance by the sea where the boom of waves just caught -it. - -And O'Malley loved it all, and "thrilled" as he watched and listened. -From his hidden self within something passed out and joined it. He felt -the wild pulse of energetic life that drove along with the tumult of it. -The savage, untamed soul in him leaped as he saw; the blood ran faster. -Sitting thus upon the bank of the hurrying stream, he knew himself -akin to the main body of the invisible current further out; it drew him -with it, and he experienced a quickening of all his impulses toward some -wild freedom that was mighty--clean--simple. - -Civilian dress was rare, and noticeable when it came. The shipping agents -wore black alpaca coats, white trousers, and modern hats of straw. A few -ship's officers in blue, with official caps gold-braided, passed in and -out like men without a wedding garment, as distressingly out of the -picture as tourists in check knickerbockers and nailed boots moving -through some dim cathedral aisle. O'Malley recognized one or two from -his own steamer, and turned his head the other way. It hurt. He caught -himself thinking, as he saw them, of Stock Exchanges, two-penny-tubes, -Belgravia dinner parties, private views, "small and earlies," musical -comedy, and all the rest of the dismal and meager program. These -harmless little modern uniforms were worse than ludicrous, for they -formed links with the glare and noise of the civilization he had left -behind, the smeared vulgarity of the big cities where men and women -live in their possessions, wasting life in that worship of external -detail they call "progress"... - -A well-known German voice crashed through his dream. - -"Already at the wine! These Caucasian vintages are good; they really -taste of grapes and earth and flowers. Yes, thanks, I'll join you for a -moment if I may. We only lie three days in port and are glad to get -ashore." - -O'Malley called for a second glass, and passed the cigarettes. - -"I prefer my black cigars, thank you," was the reply, lighting one. -"You push on tomorrow, I suppose? Kars, Tiflis, Erzerum, or somewhere -a little wilder in the mountains, eh?" - -"Toward the mountains, yes," the Irishman said. Dr. Stahl was the only -person he could possibly have allowed to sit next him at such a time. He -had quite forgiven him now, and though at first he felt no positive -welcome, the strange link between the two men quickly asserted itself and -welded them together in that odd harmony they knew in spite of all -differences. They could be silent together, too, without distress or -awkwardness, sure test that at least some portion of their personalities -fused. - -And for a long time they remained silent, watching the surge and -movement of the old, old types about them. They sipped the yellow -wine and smoked. The stars came out; the carriages grew less; from far -away floated a deep sonorous echo now and then of the soldiers singing -by their barracks. Sometimes a steamer hooted. Cossacks swung by. -Often some wild cry rang out from a side street. There were heavy, -unfamiliar perfumes in the air. Presently Stahl began talking about the -Revolution of a few years before and the scenes of violence he had -witnessed in these little streets, the shooting, barricades, bombs thrown -into passing carriages, Cossacks charging down the pavements with -swords drawn, shouting and howling. O'Malley listened with a part of -his mind at any rate. The rest of him was much further away.... He -was up among the mountain fastnesses. Already, it seemed, he knew the -secret places of the mist, the lair of every running wind.... - -Two tall mountain tribesmen swaggered past close to their table; the -thick grey burkas almost swept their glasses. They walked magnificently -with easy, flowing stride, straight from the hips. - -"The earth here," said O'Malley, taking advantage of a pause in the -other's chatter, "produces some splendid types. Look at those two; they -make one think of trees walking--blown along bodily before a wind." -He watched them with admiration as they swung off and disappeared -among the crowd. - -Dr. Stahl, glancing keenly at him, laughed a little. - -"Yes," he said; "brave, generous fellows too as a rule, who will shoot -you for a pistol that excites their envy, yet give their life to save one -of their savage dogs. They're still--natural," he added after a -moment's hesitation; "still unspoiled. They live close to Nature with a -vengeance. Up among the Ossetians on the high saddles you'll find true -Pagans who worship trees, sacrifice blood, and offer bread and salt to -the nature-deities." - -"Still?" asked O'Malley, sipping his wine. - -"Still," replied Stahl, following his example. - -Over the glasses' rims their eyes met. Both smiled, though neither -quite knew why. The Irishman, perhaps, was thinking of the little city -clerks he knew at home, pigeon-breasted, pale-faced, under-sized. One -of these big men, so full of rushing, vigorous life, would eat a dozen at -a sitting. - -"There's something here the rest of the world has lost," he murmured -to himself. But the doctor heard him. - -"You feel it?" he asked quickly, his eyes brightening. "The awful, -primitive beauty--?" - -"I feel--something, certainly," was the cautious answer. He could -not possibly have said more just then; yet it seemed as though he heard -far echoes of that voice that had been first borne to his ears across the -blue AEgean. In the gorges of these terrible mountains it surely sounded -still. These men must know it too. - -"The spell of this strange land will never leave you once you've felt -it," pursued the other quietly, his voice deepening. "Even in the towns -here--Tiflis, Kutais--I have felt it. Hereabouts is the cradle of the -human race, they say, and the people have not changed for thousands -of years. Some of them you'll find"--he hunted for a word, then said -with a curious, shrugging gesture, "terrific." - -"Ah--" said the Irishman, lighting a fresh cigarette from the dying -stump so clumsily that the trembling of the hand was noticeable. - -"And akin most likely," said Stahl, thrusting his face across the table -with a whispering tone, "to that--man--who--tempted you." - -O'Malley did not answer. He drank the liquid golden sunshine in his -glass; his eyes lifted to the stars that watched above the sea; between -the surge of human figures came a little wind from the grim, mysterious -Caucasus beyond. He turned all tender as a child, receiving as with a -shock of sudden strength and sweetness a thousand intimate messages from -the splendid mood of old Mother-Earth who here expressed herself in such -a potent breed of men and mountains. - -He heard the doctor's voice still speaking, as from a distance though:-- - -"For here they all grow with her. They do not fight her and resist. She -pours freely through them; there is no opposition. The channels still lie -open; ... and they share her life and power." - -"That beauty which the modern world has lost," repeated the other -to himself, lingering over the words, and wondering why they expressed -so little of what he really meant. - -"But which will never--_can_ never come again," Stahl completed the -sentence. There was a wistful, genuine sadness in his voice and eyes, and -the sympathy touched the inflammable Celt with fire. It was ever thus -with him. The little man opposite, with the ragged beard, and the bald, -domed head gleaming in the electric light, had laid a card upon the -table, showing a bit of his burning heart. The generous Irishman -responded like a child, laying himself bare. So hungry was he for -comprehension. - -"Men have everywhere else clothed her fair body with their smothering, -ugly clothing and their herded cities," he burst out, so loud that -the Armenian waiter sidled up, thinking he called for wine. "But here -she lies naked and unashamed, sweet in divinity made simple. By Jove! -I tell you, doctor, it burns and sweeps me with a kind of splendid -passion that drowns my little shame-faced personality of the twentieth -century. I could run out and worship--fall down and kiss the grass and -soil and sea--!" - -He drew back suddenly like a wounded animal; his face turned scarlet, -as though he knew himself convicted of an hysterical outburst. Stahl's -eyes had changed even as he spoke the flaming words that struggled so -awkwardly to seize his mood of rapture--a thought the Earth poured -through him for a moment. The bitter, half-mocking smile lay in them, -and on the lips the cold and critical expression of the other Stahl, -skeptic and science-man. A revulsion of feeling caught them both. But to -O'Malley came the thought that once again he had been drawn--was -being coaxed for examination beneath the microscope. - -"The material here," Stahl said presently, with the calm tones of a -dispassionate diagnosis, "is magnificent as you say, uncivilized without -being merely savage, untamed, yet far from crude barbarism. When the -progress of the age gets into this land the transformation will be grand. -When Russia lets in culture, when modern improvements have developed -her resources and trained the wild human forces into useful channels...." - -He went on calmly by the yard, till it was all the Irishman could do -not to dash the wine-glass in his face. - -"Remember my words when you are up in the lonely mountains," he -concluded at length, smiling his queer sardonic smile, "and keep yourself -in hand. Put on the brakes when possible. Your experience will thus -have far more value." - -"And you," replied O'Malley bluntly, so bluntly it was almost rudeness, -"go back to Fechner, and try to save your compromising soul before -it is too late--" - -"Still following those lights that do mislead the morn," Stahl added -gently, breaking into English for a phrase he apparently loved. They -laughed and raised their glasses. - -A long pause came which neither cared to break. The streets were -growing empty, the personality of the mysterious little Black Sea port -folding away into the darkness. The wilder element had withdrawn -behind the shuttered windows. There came a murmur of the waves, but -the soldiers no longer sang. The droschkys ceased to rattle past. The -night flowed down more thickly from the mountains, and the air, moist -with that malarial miasma which makes the climate of this reclaimed -marsh whereon Batoum is built so unhealthy, closed unpleasantly about -them. The stars died in it. - -"Another glass?" suggested Stahl. "A drink to the gods of the Future, -and till we meet again, on your return journey, eh?" - -"I'll walk with you to the steamer," was the reply. "I never care for -much wine. And the gods of the Future will prefer my usual offering, I -think--imaginative faith." - -The doctor did not ask him to explain. They walked down the middle -of the narrow streets. No one was about, nor were there lights in many -windows. Once or twice from an upper story came the faint twanging -of a balalaika against the drone of voices, and occasionally they passed -a little garden where figures outlined themselves among the trees, with -the clink of glasses, laughter of men and girls, and the glowing tips of -cigarettes. - -They turned down toward the harbor where the spars and funnels of -the big steamers were just visible against the sky, and opposite the -unshuttered window of a shop--one of those modern shops that oddly -mar the town with assorted German tinware, Paris hats, and oleographs -indiscriminately mingled--Stahl stopped a moment and pointed. They -moved up idly and looked in. From the shadows of the other side, well -hidden, an armed patrol eyed them suspiciously, though they were not -aware of it. - -"It was before a window like this," remarked Stahl, apparently casually, -"that I once in Tiflis overheard two mountain Georgians talking -together as they examined a reproduction of a modern picture--Boecklin's -'Centaur.' They spoke in half whispers, but I caught the trend of -what they said. You know the picture, perhaps?" - -"I've seen it somewhere, yes," was the short reply. "But what were they -saying?" He strove to keep his voice commonplace and casual like his -companion's. - -"Oh, just discussing it together, but with a curious stretched interest," -Stahl went on. "One asked, 'What does it say?' and pointed to the -inscription underneath. They could not read. For a long time they stared -in silence, their faces grave and half afraid. 'What is it?' repeated the -first one, and the other, a much older man, heavily bearded and of giant -build, replied low, 'It's what I told you about'; there was awe in his -tone and manner; 'they still live in the big valley of the rhododendrons -beyond--' mentioning some lonely uninhabited region toward Daghestan; -'they come in the spring, and are very swift and roaring....You must -always hide. To see them is to die. But they cannot die; they are of the -mountains. They are older, older than the stones. And the dogs will warn -you, or the horses, or sometimes a great sudden wind, though you must -never shoot.' They stood gazing in solemn wonder for minutes...till at -last, realizing that their silence was final, I moved away. There were -manifestations of life in the mountains, you see, that they had seen and -knew about--old forms akin to that picture apparently." - -The patrol came out of his shadows, and Stahl quickly drew his -companion along the pavement. - -"You have your passport with you?" he asked, noticing the man behind -them. - -"It went to the police this afternoon. I haven't got it back yet." -O'Malley spoke thickly, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. How -much he welcomed that casual interruption of the practical world he -could never explain or tell. For the moment he had felt like wax in the -other's hands. He had dreaded searching questions, and felt unspeakably -relieved. A minute more and he would have burst into confession. - -"You should never be without it," the doctor added. "The police here -are perfect fiends, and can cause you endless inconvenience." - -O'Malley knew it all, but gladly seized the talk and spun it out, asking -innocent questions while scarcely listening to the answers. They -distanced the patrol and neared the quays and shipping. In the darkness -of the sky a great line showed where the spurs of the Lesser Caucasus -gloomed huge and solemn to the East and West. At the gangway of the -steamer they said good-bye. Stahl held the Irishman's hand a moment -in his own. - -"Remember, when you know temptation strong," he said gravely, though a -smile was in the eyes, "the passwords that I now give you: Humanity and -Civilization." - -"I'll try." - -They shook hands warmly enough. - -"Come home by this steamer if you can," he called down from the deck. -"And keep to the middle of the road on your way back to the hotel. It's -safer in a town like this." O'Malley divined the twinkle in his -eyes as he said it. "Forgive my many sins," he heard finally, "and when -we meet again, tell me your own...." The darkness took the sentence. -But the word the Irishman took home with him to the little hotel was -the single one--Civilization: and this, owing to the peculiar -significance of intonation and accent with which this bewildering and -self-contradictory being had uttered it. - - - - -XXVI - - -He walked along the middle of the street as Stahl had advised. He -would have done so in any case, unconsciously, for he knew these towns -quite as well as the German did. Yet he did not walk alone. The entire -Earth walked with him, and personal danger was an impossibility. A -dozen ruffians might attack him, but none could "take" his life. - -How simple it all seemed, yet how utterly beyond the reach of -intelligible description to those who have never felt it--this sudden -surge upwards, downwards, all around and about of the vaster -consciousness amid which the sense of normal individuality seemed but a -tiny focused point. That loss of personality he first dreaded as an -"inner catastrophe" appeared to him now for what it actually was--merely -an extinction of some phantasmal illusion of self into the only true -life. Here, upon the fringe of this wonder-region of the Caucasus, the -spirit of the Earth still manifested as of old, reached out lovingly to -those of her children who were simple enough to respond, ready to fold -them in and heal them of the modern, racking fevers which must otherwise -destroy them.... The entire sky of soft darkness became a hand that -covered him, and stroked him into peace; the perfume that wafted down -that narrow street beside him was the single, enveloping fragrance of -the whole wide Earth herself; he caught the very murmur of her splendid -journey through the stars. The certitude of some state of boundless being -flamed, roaring and immense, about his soul.... - -And when he reached his room, a little cell that shut out light and -air, he met that sinister denial of the simple life which, for him at -least, was the true Dweller on the Threshold. Crashing in to it he -choked, as it were, and could have cried aloud. It gripped and caught him -by the throat--the word that Stahl--Stahl who understood even while he -warned and mocked and hesitated himself--had flung so tauntingly -upon him from the decks--Civilization. - -Upon his table lay by chance--the Armenian hotel-keeper had -evidently unearthed it for his benefit--a copy of a London halfpenny -paper, a paper that feeds the public with the ugliest details of all the -least important facts of life by the yard, inventing others when the -supply is poor. He read it over vaguely, with a sense of cold distress -that was half pain, half nausea. Somehow it stirred his sense of humor; -he returned slowly to his normal, littler state. But it was not the -contrast which made him smile; rather was it the chance juxtaposition of -certain of the contents; for on the page facing the accounts of railway -accidents, of people burned alive, explosions, giant strikes, crumpled -air-men and other countless horrors which modern inventions offered upon -the altar of feverish Progress, he read a complacently boastful leader -that extolled the conquest of Nature men had learned _by speed_. The -ability to pass from one point to another across the skin of the globe in -the least possible time was sign of the development of the human soul. - -The pompous flatulence of the language touched bathos. He thought -of the thousands who had read both columns and preened themselves -upon that leader. He thought how they would pride themselves upon -the latest contrivance for speeding their inert bodies from one point to -another "annihilating distance"; upon being able to get from suburbia -to the huge shops that created artificial wants, then filled them; from -the pokey villas with their wee sham gardens to the dingy offices; from -dark airless East End rooms to countless factories that pour out -semifraudulent, unnecessary wares upon the world, explosives and weapons -to destroy another nation, or cheapjack goods to poison their own--all -in a few minutes less than they could do it the week before. - -And then he thought of the leisure of the country folk and of those -who knew how to be content without external possessions, to watch the -sunset and the dawn with hearts that sought realities; sharing the -noble slowness of the seasons, the gradual growth of flowers, trees, -and crops, the unhurried dignity of Nature's grand procession, the -repose-in-progress of the Mother-Earth. - -The calmness of the unhastening Earth once more possessed his soul -in peace. He hid the paper, watching the quiet way the night beyond -his window buried it from sight... - -And through that open window came the perfume and the mighty hand of -darkness slowly. It seemed to this imaginative Irishman that he caught a -sound of awful laughter from the mountains and the sea, a laughter that -brought, too, a wave of sighing--of deep and old-world sighing. - -And before he went to sleep he took an antidote in the form of a -page from that book that accompanied all his travels, a book which was -written wholly in the open air because its message refused to come to -the heart of the inspired writer within doors, try as he would, the "sky -especially containing for me the key, the inspiration--" - -And the fragment that he read expressed a little bit of his own thought -and feeling. The seer who wrote it looked ahead, naming it "After -Civilization," whereas he looked back. But they saw the same vision; -the confusion of time was nothing:-- - -In the first soft winds of spring, while snow yet lay on the ground-- -Forth from the city into the great woods wandering, -Into the great silent white woods where they waited in their beauty and - majesty -For man their companion to come: -There, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilizations, -Slowly out of the ruins of the past - -Out of the litter and muck of a decaying world, -Lo! even so -I saw a new life arise. -O sound of waters, jubilant, pouring, pouring--O hidden song in the - hollows! -Secret of the Earth, swelling, sobbing to divulge itself! -Slowly, building, lifting itself up atom by atom, -Gathering itself round a new center--or rather round the world--old - center once more revealed-- -I saw a new life, a new society, arise. -Man I saw arising once more to dwell with Nature; -(The old old story--the prodigal son returning, so loved, -The long estrangement, the long entanglement in vain things)-- -The child returning to its home--companion of the winter woods once - more-- -Companion of the stars and waters--hearing their words at first-hand - (more than all science ever taught)-- -The near contact, the dear dear mother so close--the twilight sky - and the young tree-tops against it; -The few needs, the exhilarated radiant life--the food and population - question giving no more trouble; -No hurry more, no striving one to over-ride the other: - ... man the companion of Nature. -Civilization behind him now--the wonderful stretch of the past; -Continents, empires, religions, wars, migrations--all gathered up in him; -The immense knowledge, the vast winged powers--to use or not to use--... - -And as he fell asleep at length it seemed there came a sound of hushed -huge trampling underneath his window, and that when he rose to listen, -his big friend from the steamer led him forth into the darkness, that -those shapes of Cloud and Wind he now so often saw, companioned them -across the heights of the night toward some place in the distant -mountains where light and flowers were, and all his dream of years most -exquisitely fulfilled.... - -He slept. And through his sleep there dropped the words of that old -tribesman from the wilderness: "They come in the spring... and are -very swift and roaring. They are older, older than the stones. They -cannot die... they are of the mountains, and you must hide." - -But the dream-consciousness knows no hiding; and though memory -failed to report with detail in the morning, O'Malley woke refreshed -and blessed, knowing that companionship awaited him, and that once -he found the courage to escape completely, the Simple Life of Earth -would claim him in full consciousness. - -Stahl with his little modern "Intellect" was no longer there to hinder -and prevent. - - - - -XXVII - -"Far, very far, steer by my star, -Leaving the loud world's hurry and clamor, -In the mid-sea waits you, maybe, -The Isles of Glamour, where Beauty reigns. -From coasts of commerce and myriad-marted -Towns of traffic by wide seas parted, -Past shoals unmapped and by reefs uncharted, -The single-hearted my isle attains. - -"Each soul may find faith to her mind, -Seek you the peace of the groves Elysian, -Or the ivy twine and the wands of vine, -The Dionysian, Orphic rite? -To share the joy of the Maenad's leaping -In frenzied train thro' the dusk glen sweeping, -The dew-drench'd dance and the star-watch'd sleeping, -Or temple keeping in vestal white? - -"Ye who regret suns that have set, -Lo, each god of the ages golden, -Here is enshrined, ageless and kind, -Unbeholden the dark years through. -Their faithful oracles yet bestowing, -By laurels whisper and clear streams flowing, -Or the leafy stir of the Gods' own going, -In oak trees blowing, may answer you!" - ---From PEREGRINA'S SONG - - -For the next month Terence O'Malley possessed his soul in patience; -he worked, and the work saved him. That is to say it enabled him to -keep what men call "balanced." Stahl had--whether intentionally or -not he was never quite certain--raised a tempest in him. More accurately, -perhaps, he had called it to the top, for it had been raging deep -down ever since he could remember, or had begun to think. - -That the earth might be a living, sentient organism, though too vast -to be envisaged as such by normal human consciousness, had always been a -tenet of his imagination's creed. Now he knew it true, as a dinner-gong -is true. That deep yearnings, impossible of satisfaction in the external -conditions of ordinary life, could know subjective fulfillment in the -mind, had always been for him poetically true, as for any other poet: now -he realized that it was literally true for some outlying tract of -consciousness usually inactive, termed by some transliminal. Spiritual -nostalgia provided the channel, and the transfer of consciousness -to this outlying tract, involving, of course, a trance condition of -the usual self, indicated the way--that was all. - -Again, his mystical temperament had always seen objects as forces -which from some invisible center push outwards into visible shape--as -bodies: bodies of trees, stones, flowers, men, women, animals; and -others but partially pushed outwards, still invisible to limited physical -sight at least, either too huge, too small, or too attenuated for vision. -Whereas now, as a result of Stahl and Fechner combined, it flamed into -him that this was positively true; more--that there was a point in his -transliminal consciousness where he might "contact" these forces before -they reached their cruder external expression as bodies. Nature, in this -sense, had always been for him alive, though he had allowed himself -the term by a long stretch of poetic sympathy; but now he knew that it -was actually true, because objects, landscapes, humans, and the rest, -were verily aspects of the collective consciousness of the Earth, moods -of her spirit, phases of her being, expressions of her deep, pure, -passionate "heart"--projections of herself. - -He pondered lingeringly over this. Common words revealed their open faces -to him. He saw the ideas behind language, saw them naked. Repetition had -robbed them of so much that now became vital, like Bible phrases that too -great familiarity in childhood kills for all subsequent life as -meaningless. His eyes were opened perhaps. He took a flower into his mind -and thought about it; really thought; meditated lovingly. A flower was -literally projected by the earth so far as its form was concerned. Its -roots gathered soil and earth-matter, changing them into leaves and -blossoms; its leaves again, took of the atmosphere, also a part of the -earth. It was projected by the earth, born of her, fed by her, and at -"death" returned into her. But this was its outward and visible form -only. The flower, for his imaginative mind, was a force made visible -as literally as a house was a force the mind of the architect made -visible. In the mind, or consciousness of the Earth this flower first lay -latent as a dream. Perhaps, in her consciousness, it nested as that which -in us corresponds to a little thought.... And from this he leaped, as the -way ever was with him, to bigger "projections"--trees, atmosphere, -clouds, winds, some visible, some invisible, and so to a deeper yet -simpler comprehension of Fechner's thundering conception of human beings -as projections. Was he, then, literally, a child of the Earth, mothered -by the whole magnificent planet...? All the world akin--that seeking for -an eternal home in every human heart explained...? And were there--had -there been rather--these other, vaster projections Stahl had adumbrated -with his sudden borrowed stretch of vision--forces, thoughts, moods of -her hidden life invisible to sight, yet able to be felt and known -interiorly? - -That "the gods" were definitely knowable Powers, accessible to any -genuine worshipper, had ever haunted his mind, thinly separated only -from definite belief: now he understood that this also had been true, -though only partially divined before. For now he saw them as the rare -expressions of the Earth's in the morning of her life. That he might ever -come to know them close made him tremble with a fearful joy, the idea -flaming across his being with a dazzling brilliance that brought him -close to that state of consciousness termed ecstasy. And that in certain -unique beings, outwardly human like his friend, there might still survive -some primitive expression of the Earth-Soul, lesser than the gods, and -intermediate as it were, became for him now a fact--wondrous, -awe-inspiring, even holy, but still a fact that he could grasp. - -He had found one such; and Stahl, by warnings that fought with urging -invitation at the same time, had confirmed it. - -It was singular, he reflected, how worship had ever turned for him a -landscape or a scene enchantingly alive. Worship, he now understood, -of course invited "the gods," and was the channel through which their -manifestation became possible to the soul. All the gods, then, were -accessible in this interior way, but Pan especially--in desolate places -and secret corners of a wood.... He remembered dimly the Greek idea -of worship in the Mysteries: that the worshipper knew actual temporary -union with his deity in ecstasy, and at death went permanently into his -sphere of being. He understood that worship was au fond a desire for -loss of personal life--hence its subtle joy; and a fear lest it be -actually accomplished--whence its awe and wonder. - -Some glorious, winged thing moved now beside him; it held him by -the hand. The Earth possessed him; and the whole adventure, so far as -he can make it plain, was an authoritative summons to the natural, -Simple Life. - -For the next month, therefore, O'Malley, unhurrying, blessed with a -deeper sense of happiness than he had ever known before, dismissed -the "tempest" from his surface consciousness, and set to work to gather -the picturesque impressions of strange places and strange peoples that -the public liked to read about in occasional letters of travel. And by -the time May had passed into June he had moved up and down the Caucasus, -observing, learning, expanding, and gathering in the process through -every sense--through the very pores of his skin almost--draughts of a new -and abundant life that is to be had there merely for the asking. - -That modification of the personality which comes even in cities to all -but the utterly hidebound--so that a man in Rome finds himself not quite -the same as he was in London or in Paris a few days before--went forward -in him on a profounder scale than anything he had known hitherto. Nature -fed, stimulated and called him with a passionate intimacy that destroyed -all sense of loneliness, and with a vehement directness of attack that -simply charged him to the brim with a new joy of living. His vitality, -powers, even his physical health, stood at their best and highest. The -country laid its spell upon him, in a word; and if he expresses it thus -with some intensity it was because life came to him so. His record is the -measure of his vision. Those who find exaggeration in it merely confess -thereby their own smaller capacity of living. - -Here, as he wandered to and fro among these proud, immense, secluded -valleys, through remote and untamed forests, and by the banks of wild -rivers that shook their flying foam across untrodden banks, he wandered -at the same time deeper and ever deeper into himself, toward a point -where he lost touch with all that constituted him "modern," or held him -captive in the spirit of today. Nearer and ever nearer he moved into some -tremendous freedom, some state of innocence and simplicity that, while -gloriously unrestrained, yet knew no touch of license. Dreams had -whispered of it; childhood had fringed its frontiers; longings had even -mapped it faintly to his mind. But now he breathed its very air and knew -it face to face. The Earth surged wonderfully about him. - -With his sleeping-bag upon a small Caucasian horse, a sack to hold -his cooking things, a pistol in his belt, he wandered thus for days, -sleeping beneath the stars, seeing the sunset and the dawn, drenched in -new strength and wonder all the time. Here he touched deeper reaches -of the Earth that spoke of old, old things, that yet were still young -because they knew not change. He walked in the morning of the world, -through her primal fire and dew, when all was a first and giant garden. - -The advertised splendors of other lands, even of India, Egypt, and -the East, seemed almost vulgar beside this country that had somehow -held itself aloof, unstained and clean. The civilization of its little -towns seemed but a coated varnish that an hour's sun would melt away; the -railway, crawling along the flanks of the great range, but a ribbon of -old iron pinned on that, with the first shiver of those giant sides, -would split and vanish. - -Here, where the Argonauts once landed, the Golden Fleece still shone o' -nights in the depths of the rustling beech woods; along the shores of -that old Phasis their figures might still be seen, tall Jason in the -lead, erect and silvery, passing o'er the shining, flowered fields upon -their quest of ancient beauty. Further north from this sunny Colchian -strand rose the peak of Kasbek, gaunt and desolate pyramid of iron, -"sloping through five great zones of climate," whence the ghost of -Prometheus still gazed down from his "vast frozen precipice" upon a world -his courage would redeem. For somewhere here was the cradle of the human -race, fair garden of some Edened life before the "Fall," when the Earth -sang for joy in her first, golden youth, and her soul expressed itself in -mighty forms that remain for lesser days but a faded hierarchy of -visioned gods. - -A living Earth went with him everywhere, with love that never breathed -alarm. It seemed he felt her very thoughts within himself--thoughts, -however, that now no longer married with a visible expression as shapes. - -Among these old-world tribes and peoples with their babble of difficult -tongues, wonder and beauty, terror and worship, still lay too deeply -buried to have as yet externalized themselves in mental forms as legend, -myth, and story. In the blood ran all their richness undiluted. Life was -simple, full charged with an immense delight. At home little cocksure -writers in little cocksure journals, pertly modern and enlightened, might -dictate how far imaginative vision and belief could go before they -overstepped the limits of an artificial schedule; but here "everything -possible to be believed was still an image of truth," and the stream of -life flowed deeper than all mere intellectual denials. - -A little out of sight, but thinly veiled, the powers that in this haunted -corner of the earth, too strangely neglected, pushed outwards into men -and trees, into mountains, flowers, and the rest, were unenslaved and -intensely vital. In his blood O'Malley knew the primal pulses of the -world. - -It was irresistibly seductive. Whether he slept with the Aryan -Ossetians upon the high ridges of the central range, or shared the stone -huts of the mountain Jews, unchanged since Bible days, beyond the -Suram heights, there came to all his senses the message of that Golden -Age his longings ever sought--the rush and murmur of the _Urwelt_ -calling. - -And so it was, about the first week in June that lean, bronzed, and -in perfect physical condition, this wandering Irishman found himself -in a little Swanetian hamlet beyond Alighir, preparing with a Georgian -peasant-guide to penetrate yet deeper into the mountain recesses and -feed his heart with what he found of loneliness and beauty. - -This region of Imerethia, bordering on Mingrelia, is smothered -beneath an exuberance of vegetation almost tropical, blue and golden -with enormous flowers, tangled with wild vines, rich with towering soft -beech woods, and finally, in the upper sections, ablaze with leagues of -huge rhododendron trees in blossom that give whole mountain-sides -the aspect of a giant garden, flowering amid peaks that even dwarf the -Alps. For here the original garden of the world survives, run wild with -pristine loveliness. The prodigality of Nature is bewildering, almost -troubling. There are valleys, rarely entered by the foot of man, where -monstrous lilies, topping a man on foot and even reaching to his -shoulder on horseback, have suggested to botanists in their lavish -luxuriance a survival of the original flora of the world. A thousand -flowers he found whose names he had never heard of, their hues and -forms as strangely lovely as those of another planet. The grasses alone -in scale and mass were magnificent. While, in and out of all this -splendor, less dense and voluminous only than the rhododendron -forests, ran scattered lines of blazing yellow--the crowding clusters of -azalea bushes that scented the winds beyond belief. - -Beyond this region of extravagance in size and color, there ran -immense bare open slopes of smooth turf that led to the foot of the -eternal snowfields, with, far below, valleys of prodigious scale and -steepness that touched somehow with disdain all memory of other -mountain ranges he had ever known. - -And here it was this warm June evening--June 15th it was--while packing -his sack with cheese and maize-flour in the dirty yard of a so-called -"post-house," more hindered than helped by his Georgian guide, that he -realized the approach of a familiar, bearded figure. The figure emerged. -There was a sudden clutch and lift of the heart ... then a rush of wild -delight. There stood his Russian steamer-friend, part of the scale and -splendor, as though grown out of the very soil. He occupied in a flash -the middle of the picture. He gave it meaning. He was part of it, exactly -as a tree or big grey boulder were part of it. - - - - -XXVIII - -"Seasons and times; Life and Fate--all are remarkably rhythmic, metric, -regular throughout. In all crafts and arts, in all machines, in organic -bodies, in our daily occupations everywhere there is rhythm, meter, -accent, melody. All that we do with a certain skill unnoticed, we do -rhythmically. There is rhythm everywhere; it insinuates itself -everywhere. All mechanism is metric, rhythmic. There must be more in it -than this. Is it merely the influence of inertia?" - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - - -Notwithstanding the extent and loneliness of this wild country, -coincidence seemed in no way stretched by the abrupt appearance; for -in a sense it was not wholly unexpected. There had been certain -indications that the meeting again of these two was imminent. The -Irishman had never doubted they would meet. But something more than mere -hints or warnings, it seemed, had prepared him. - -The nature of these warnings, however, O'Malley never fully disclosed. -Two of them he told to me by word of mouth, but there were others he -could not bring himself to speak about at all. Even the two he mentioned -do not appear in his written account. His hesitation is not easy to -explain, unless it be that language collapsed in the attempt to describe -occurrences so remote from common experience. This may be so, although he -grappled not unsuccessfully with the rest of the amazing adventure. At -any rate I could never coax from him more than the confession that there -_were_ other things that had brought him hints. Then came a laugh, a -shrug of the shoulders, an expression of confused bewilderment in eyes -and manner and--silence. - -The two he spoke of I report as best I can. On the roof of that London -apartment-house where so many of our talks took place beneath the -stars and to the tune of bustling modern traffic, he told them to me. -Both were consistent with his theory that he was becoming daily more -active in some outlying portion of his personality--knowing experiences -in a region of extended consciousness stimulated so powerfully -by his strange new friend. - -Both, moreover, brought him one and the same conviction that he -was no longer--alone. For some days past he had realized this. More -than his peasant guide accompanied him. He was both companioned -and--observed. - -"A dozen times," he said, "I thought I saw him, and a dozen times I -was mistaken. But my mind looked for him. I knew that he was -somewhere close." He compared the feeling to that common experience -of the streets when a friend, not known to be near, or even expected, -comes abruptly into the thoughts, so that numberless individuals may -trick the sight with his appearance before he himself comes suddenly -down the pavement. His approach has reached the mind before his mere -body turns the corner. "Something in me was aware of his approach," -he added, "as though his being were sending out feelers in advance to -find me. They reached me first, I think"--he hesitated briefly, hunting -for a more accurate term he could not find--"in dream." - -"You dreamed that he was coming, then?" - -"It came first in dream," he answered; "only when I woke the dream -did not fade; it passed over into waking consciousness, so that I could -hardly tell where the threshold lay between the two. And, meanwhile, I -was always expecting to see him at every turn of the trail almost; a -little higher up the mountain, behind a rock, or standing beside a tree, -just as in the end I actually did see him. Long before he emerged in this -way, he had been close about me, guiding, waiting, watching." - -He told it as a true thing he did not quite expect me to believe. Yet, -in a sense, _his_ sense, I could and did believe it. It was so wholly -consistent with the tenor of his adventure and the condition of abnormal -receptivity of mind. For his stretched consciousness was in a state of -white sensitiveness whereon the tenderest mental force of another's -thought might well record its signature. Acutely impressionable he was -all over. Physical distance was of as little, or even of less, account to -such forces as it is to electricity. - -"But it was more than the Russian who was close," he added quietly -with one of those sentences that startled me into keen attention. "He -was there--with others--of his kind." - -And then, hardly pausing to take breath, he plunged, as his manner -was, full tilt into the details of this first experience that thrilled my -hedging soul with an astonishing power of conviction. As always when -his heart was in the words, the scenery about us faded and I lived the -adventure with him. The cowled and hooded chimneys turned to trees, -the stretch of dim star-lit London Park became a deep Caucasian vale, -the thunder of the traffic was the roaring of the snow-fed torrents. The -very perfume of strange flowers floated in the air. - -They had been in their blankets, he and his peasant guide, for hours, -and a moon approaching the full still concealed all signs of dawn, when -he woke out of deep sleep with the odd sensation that it was only a part -of him that woke. One portion of him was in the body, while another -portion was elsewhere, manifesting with ease and freedom in some state -or region whither he had traveled in his sleep--where, moreover, he -had not been alone. - -And close about him in the trees was--movement. Yes! Through and -between the scattered trunks he saw it still. - -With eyes a little dazed, the active portion of his brain perceived this -processing movement passing to and fro across the glades of moonlight -beneath the steady trees. For there was no wind. The shadows of the -branches did not stir. He saw swift running shapes, vigorous yet silent, -hurrying across the network of splashed silver and pools of black in -some kind of organized movement that was circular and seemed not due to -chance. Arranged it seemed and ordered; like the regulated revolutions -of a set and whirling measure. - -Perhaps twenty feet from where he lay was the outer fringe of what -he discerned to be this fragment of some grand gamboling dance or -frolic; yet discerned but dimly, for the darkness combined with his -uncertain vision to obscure it. - -And the shapes, as they sped across the silvery patchwork of the moon, -seemed curiously familiar. Beyond question he recognized and knew them. -For they were akin to those shadowy emanations seen weeks ago upon the -steamer's after-deck, to that "messenger" who climbed from out the sea -and sky, and to that form the spirit of the boy assumed, set free in -death. They were the flying outlines of Wind and Cloud he had so often -glimpsed in vision, racing over the long, bare, open hills--at last come -near. - -In the moment of first waking, when he saw them clearest, he declares -with emphasis that he _knew_ the father and the boy were among them. -Not so much that he saw them actually for recognition, but rather that -he felt their rushing presences; for the first sensation on opening his -eyes was the conviction that both had passed him close, had almost -touched and called him. Afterwards he searched in vain among the -flying forms that swept in the swift succession of their leaping dance -across the silvery pathways. While varying in size all were so similar. - -His description of them is confused a little, for he admits that he -could never properly focus them in steady sight. They slipped with a -melting swiftness under the eye; the moment one seemed caught in vision -it passed on further and the next was in its place. It was like -following a running wave-form on the sea. He says, moreover, that while -erect and splendid, their backs and shoulders seemed prolonged in -hugeness as though they often crouched to spring; they seemed to paw -the air; and that a faint delicious sound to which they kept obedient -time and rhythm, held that same sweetness which had issued from the -hills of Greece, blown down now among the trees from very far away. -And when he says "blown down among the trees," he qualifies this -phrase as well, because at the same time it came to him that the sound -also rose up from underneath the earth, as if the very surface of the -ground ran shaking with a soft vibration of its own. Some marvelous -dream it might have been in which the forms, the movement, and the -sound were all thrown up and outwards from the quivering surface of -the Earth itself. - -Yet, almost simultaneously with the first instant of waking, the body -issued its call of warning. For, while he gazed, and before time for the -least reflection came, the Irishman experienced this dislocating -conviction that he himself was taking part in the whirling gambol even -while he lay and watched it, and that in this way the sense of division -in his personality was explained. The fragment of himself within the -brain watched some other more vital fragment--some projection of his -consciousness detached and separate--playing yonder with its kind -beneath the moon. - -This sense of a divided self was not new to him, but never before had -he known it so distinct and overwhelming. The definiteness of the -division, as well as the importance and vitality of the separated -portion, were arrestingly novel. It felt as though he were completely -out, or to such a degree, at least, that the fraction left behind with -the brain was at first only just sufficient for him to recognize his body -at all. - -Yonder with these others he felt the wind of movement pass along -his back, he saw the trees slip by, and knew the very contact of the -ground between the leaps. His movements were natural and easy, light -as air and fast as wind; they seemed automatic, impelled by something -mighty that directed and contained them. He knew, too, the sensation -that others pressed behind him and passed before, slipped in and out, -and that through the whole wild urgency of it he yet could never make -an error. More--he knew that these shifting forms had been close and -dancing about him for a time not measurable merely by the hours of a -single night, that in a sense they were always there though he had but -just discovered them. His earlier glimpses had been a very partial -divination of a truth, immense and beautiful, that now dawned quite -gorgeously upon him all complete. - -The whole world danced. The Universe was rhythmical as well as metrical. - -For this amazing splendor showed itself in a flash-like revelation to -the freed portion of his consciousness, and he knew it irresistibly -because he himself shared it. Here was an infinite joy, naked and -unashamed, born of the mighty Mother's heart and life, a joy which, in -its feebler, lesser manifestations, trickles down into human conditions, -though still spontaneously even then, so pure its primal urgency, -as--dancing. - -The entire experience, the entire revelation, he thinks, can have -occupied but a fraction of a second, but it seemed to smite the whole -of his being at once with the conviction of a supreme authority. And -close behind it came, too, that other sister expression of a spontaneous -and natural expression, equally rhythmical--the impulse to sing. He -could have sung aloud. For this puissant and mysterious rhythm to which -all moved was greater than any little measure of their own. Surging -through them, it came from outside and beyond, infinitely greater than -themselves, springing from something of which they were, nevertheless, a -living portion. From the body of the Earth it came direct--it was in -fact a manifestation of her own vibrating life. The currents of the -Earth pulsed through them. - -"And then," he says, "I caught this flaming thought of wonder, though so -much of it faded instantly upon my full awakening that I can only give -you the merest suggestion of what it was." - -He stood up beside me as he said it, spreading his arms, as so often -when he was excited, to the sky. I caught the glow of his eyes, and in -his voice was passion. He spoke unquestionably of something he had -intimately known, not as men speak of even the vividest dreams, but of -realities that have burned the heart and left their trails of glory. - -"Science has guessed some inkling of the truth," he cried, "when it -declares that the ultimate molecules of matter are in constant vibratory -movement one about another, even upon the point of a needle. But I -saw--_knew_, rather, as if I had always known it, sweet as summer rain, -and close in me as love--that the whole Earth with all her myriad -expressions of life moved to this primal rhythm as of some divine -dancing." - -"Dancing?" I asked, puzzled. - -"Rhythmical movement call it then," he replied. "To share the life of -the Earth is to dance and sing in a huge abundant joy! And the nearer -to her great heart, the more natural and spontaneous the impulse--the -instinctive dancing of primitive races, of savages and children, still -artless and untamed; the gamboling of animals, of rabbits in the meadows -and of deer unwatched in forest clearings--you know naturalists have -sometimes seen it; of birds in the air--rooks, gulls, and swallows; of -the life within the sea; even of gnats in the haze of summer afternoons. -All life simple enough to touch and share the enormous happiness of -her deep, streaming, personal Being, dances instinctively for very -joy--obedient to a greater measure than they know.... The natural -movement of the great Earth-Soul is rhythmical. The very winds, the -swaying of trees and flowers and grasses, the movement of the sea, of -water running through the fields with silver feet, of the clouds and -edges of the mist, even the trembling of the earthquakes,--all, all -respond in sympathetic motions to this huge vibratory movement of her -great central pulse. Ay, and the mountains too, though so vastly -scaled their measure that perhaps we only know the pauses in between, -and think them motionless.... The mountains rise and fall and change; -our very breathing, first sign of stirring life, even the circulation of -our blood, bring testimony; our speech as well--inspired words are ever -rhythmical, language that pours into the poet's mind from something -greater than himself. And not unwisely, but in obedience to a deep -instinctive knowledge was dancing once--in earlier, simpler days--a -form of worship. You know, at least, how rhythm in music and ceremonial -uplifts and cleans and simplifies the heart toward the greater life.... -You know, perhaps, the Dance of Jesus...." - -The words poured from him with passion, yet always uttered gently -with a smile of joy upon the face. I saw his figure standing over me, -outlined against the starry sky; and, deeply stirred, I listened with -delight and wonder. Rhythm surely lies behind all expression of life. -He was on the heels of some simple, dazzling verity though he phrased it -wildly. But not a tenth part of all he said could I recapture afterwards -for writing down. The steady, gentle swaying of his body I remember -clearly, and that somewhere or other in the stream of language, he made -apt reference to the rhythmical swaying of those who speak in trance, or -know some strange, possessing gust of inspiration. - -The first and natural expression of the Earth's vitality lies in a -dancing movement of purest joy and happiness--that for me is the gist of -what remains. Those near enough to Nature feel it. I myself remembered -days in spring ... my thoughts, borne upon some sweet emotion, traveled -far.... - -"And not of the Earth alone," he interrupted my dreaming in a voice -like singing, "but of the entire Universe. The spheres and -constellations weave across the fields of ether the immense old rhythm of -their divine, eternal dance...!" - -Then, with a disconcerting abruptness, and a strange little wayward -laugh as of apology for having let himself so freely go, he sat down -beside me with his back against the chimney-stack. He resumed more -quietly the account of this particular adventure that lay 'twixt dream -and waking: - -All that he described had happened in a few seconds. It flashed, -complete, authoritative and vivid, then passed away. He knew again the -call and warning of his body--to return. For this consciousness of being -in two places at once, divided as it were against himself, brought with -it the necessity for decision. With which portion should he identify -himself? By an act of will, it seemed, a choice was possible. - -And with it, then, came the knowledge that to remain "out" was easier -than to return. This time, to come back into himself would be difficult. - -The very possibility seemed to provide the shock of energy necessary -for overcoming it; the experience alarmed him; it was like holding an -option upon living--like a foretaste of death. Automatically, as it were, -these loosened forces in him answered to the body's summons. The -result was immediate and singular; one of these Dancing outlines -separated itself from the main herd, approached with a sudden silent -rush, enveloped him for a second of darkness and confusion, losing its -shape completely on the way, and then merged into his being as smoke -slips in and merges with the structure of a tree. - -The projected portion of his personality had returned. The sense of -division was gone. There remained behind only the little terror of the -weak flesh whose summons had thus brought it back. - -The same instant he was fully awake--the night about him empty -of all but the silver dreaming of the moon among the shadows. Beside -him lay the sleeping figure of his companion, the bashlik of lamb's wool -drawn closely down about the ears and neck, and the voluminous black -burka shrouding him from feet to shoulders. A little distance away the -horse stood, munching grass. Again he noted that there was no wind, -and the shadows of the trees lay motionless upon the ground. The air -smelt sweet of forest, soil, and dew. - -The experience--it seemed now--belonged to dreaming rather than -to waking consciousness, for there was nothing about him to confirm -it outwardly. Only the memory remained--that, and a vast, deep-coursing, -subtle happiness. The smaller terror that he felt was of the flesh -alone, for the flesh ever instinctively fought against such separation. -The happiness, though, contained and overwhelmed the fear. - -Yes, only the memory remained, and even that fast fading. But the -substance of what had been, passed into his inmost being: the splendor -of that would remain forever, incorporated with his life. He had shared -in this brief moment of extended consciousness some measure of the -Mother's cosmic being, simple as sunshine, unrestrained as wind, complete -and satisfying. Its natural expression was rhythmical, a deep, pure -joy that drove outwards even into little human conditions as dancing -and singing. He had known it, too, with companions of his kind... - -Moreover, though no longer visible or audible, it still continued -somewhere close. He was blessedly companioned all the time--and -watched. _They_ knew him one of themselves--these brother expressions -of her cosmic life--these _Urwelt_ beings that Today had no external, -bodily forms. They waited, knowing well that he would come. Fulfillment -beckoned surely just beyond... - - - - -XXIX - -"... And then suddenly,-- - While perhaps twice my heart was dutiful - To send my blood upon its little race-- - I was exalted above surety, - And out of Time did fall." - ---LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE, _Poems and Interludes_ - - -This, then, was one of the "hints" by which O'Malley knew that he -was not alone and that the mind of his companion was stretched out -to find him. He became aware after it of a distinct guidance, even of -direction as to his route of travel. The "impulse came," as one says, to -turn northwards, and he obeyed it without more ado. For this "dream" -had come to him when camped upon the slopes of Ararat, further south -toward the Turkish frontier, and though all prepared to climb the -sixteen-thousand foot summit, he changed his plans, dismissed the local -guide, and turned back for Tiflis and the Central Range. In the wilder, -lonelier mountains, he felt strongly, was where he ought to be. - -Another man, of course, would have dismissed the dream or forgotten -it while cooking his morning coffee; but, rightly or wrongly, this -divining Celt accepted it as real. He held an instinctive belief, that in -dreams of a certain order the forces that drive behind the soul at a -given moment, may reveal themselves to the subconscious self, becoming -authoritative in proportion as they are sanely encouraged and -interpreted. They dramatize themselves in scenes that are open to -intuitive interpretation. And O'Malley, it seems, possessed, like the -Hebrew prophets of old, just that measure of judgment and divination -which go to the making of a true clear-vision. - -Packing up kit and dunnage, he crossed the Georgian Military Route -on foot to Vladikavkaz, and thence with another horse and a Mohammedan -Georgian as guide, Rostom by name, journeyed _via_ Alighir and Oni up a -side valley of unforgettable splendor toward an Imerethian hamlet where -they meant to lay-in supplies for a prolonged expedition into the -uninhabited wilderness. - -And here, the second occurrence he told me of took place. It was more -direct than the first, yet equally strange; also it brought a similar -authority--coming first along the deep mysterious underpaths of -sleep--sleep, that short cut into the subconscious. - -They were camped among low boxwood trees, a hot dry night, wind soft and -stars very brilliant, when the Irishman turned in his sleeping-bag -and abruptly woke. This time there was no dream--only the certainty that -something had wakened him deliberately. He sat up, almost with a cry. It -was exactly as though he heard himself called by name and recognized the -voice that spoke it. He looked quickly round. Nothing but the crowding -army of the box-trees was visible, some bushy and round, others -straggling in their outline, all whispering gently together in the night. -Beyond ran the immense slopes, and far overhead he saw the gleaming snow -on peaks that brushed the stars. - -No one was visible. This time no flying figures danced beneath the -moon. There was, indeed, no moon. Something, however, he knew had -come up close and touched him, calling him from the depths of a -profound and tired slumber. It had withdrawn again, vanished into the -night. The strong certainty remained, though, that it lingered near about -him still, trying to press forwards and outwards into some kind of -objective visible expression that _included himself_. He had responded -with an effort in his sleep, but the effort had been unsuccessful. He had -merely waked ... and lost it. - -The horse, tethered a few feet away, was astir and troubled, straining -at the rope, whinnying faintly, and Rostom, the Georgian peasant, he -saw, was already up to quiet it. A curious perfume passed him through -the air--once, then vanished; unforgettable, however, for he had known -it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods -about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers -and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that -had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting--a -fine, clean odor that he liked even while it strangely troubled him. - -Kicking out of his blankets, he joined the man and helped to -straighten out the tangled rope. Rostom spoke little Russian, and -O'Malley's knowledge of Georgian lay in a single phrase, "Look sharp!" -but with the aid of French the man had learned from shooting-parties, -he gathered that some one had approached during the night and -camped, it seemed, not far away above them. - -Though unusual enough in so unfrequented a region, this was not -necessarily alarming, and the first proof O'Malley had that the man -experienced no ordinary physical fear was the fact that he had left both -knife and rifle in his blankets. Hitherto, at the least sign of danger, -he changed into a perfect arsenal; he invariably slept "in his weapons"; -but now, even in the darkness, the other noted that he was unarmed, and -therefore it was no attempt at horse-stealing or of assault upon -themselves he feared. - -"Who is it? What is it?" he asked, stumbling over the tangle of -string-like roots that netted the ground. "Natives, travelers like -ourselves, or--something else?" He spoke very low, as though aware that -what had waked him still hovered close enough to overhear. "Why do you -fear?" - -And Rostom looked up a moment from stooping over the rope. He stepped a -little nearer, avoiding the animal's hoofs. In a confused whisper of -French and Russian, making at the same time the protective signs of his -religion, he muttered a sentence of which the other caught little more -than the unassuring word that something was about them close--something -"_mechant_." This curious, significant word he used. - -The whispered utterance, the manner that went with it, surely the dark -and lonely setting of the little scene as well, served to convey the -full suggestion of the adjective with a force the man himself could -scarcely have intended. Something had passed by, not so much evil, -wicked, or malign as strange and alien--uncanny. Rostom, a man utterly -careless of physical danger, rising to it, rather, with delight, was -frightened--in his soul. - -"What do you mean?" O'Malley asked louder, with an air of impatience -assumed. The man was on his knees, but whether praying, or merely -struggling with the rope, was hard to see. "What is it you're talking -about so foolishly?" He spoke with a confidence he hardly felt himself. - -And the involved reply, spoken with lips against the earth, the head -but slightly turned as he knelt, again smothered the words. Only the -curious phrase came to him--"_de l'ancien monde_--_quelque-chose_--" - -The Irishman took him by the shoulders. Not meaning actually to shake -him, he yet must have used some violence, for the fact was that he did -not like the answers and sought to deny some strong emotion in himself. -The man stood up abruptly with a kind of sudden spring. The expression of -his face was not easily divined in the darkness, but a gleam of the eyes -was clearly visible. It may have been anger, it may have been terror; -vivid excitement it certainly was. - -"Something--old as the stones, old as the stones," he whispered, -thrusting his dark bearded face unpleasantly close. "Such things are in -these mountains.... _Mais oui! C'est moi qui vous le dis!_ Old as the -stones, I tell you. And sometimes they come out close--with sudden wind. -_We_ know!" - -He stepped back again sharply and dropped upon his knees, bowing -to the ground with flattened palms. He made a repelling gesture as -though it was O'Malley's presence that brought the experience. - -"And to see them is--to die!" he heard, muttered against the ground -thickly. "To see them is to die!" - -The Irishman went back to his sleeping-bag. Some strange passion of -the man was deeply stirred; he did not wish to offend his violent beliefs -and turn it against himself in a stupid, scrambling fight. He lay and -waited. He heard the muttering of the deep voice behind him in the -darkness. Presently it ceased. Rostom came softly back to bed. - -"_He_ knows; _he_ warned me!" he whispered, jerking one hand toward the -horse significantly, as they at length lay again side by side in their -blankets and the stars shone down upon them from a deep black sky. -"But, for the moment, they have passed, not finding us. No wind has -come." - -"Another--horse?" asked O'Malley suggestively, with a sympathy -meant to quiet him. - -But the peasant shook his head; and this time it was not difficult to -divine the expression on his face even in the darkness. At the same -moment the tethered animal again uttered a long whinnying cry, plaintive, -yet of pleasure rather than alarm it seemed, which instantly brought -the man again with a leap from the blankets to his knees. O'Malley did -not go to help him; he stuffed the clothes against his ears and waited; -he did not wish to hear the peasant's sentences. - -And this pantomime went on at intervals for an hour or more, when -at length the horse grew quiet and O'Malley snatched moments of -unrefreshing sleep. The night lay thick about them with a silence like -the silence of the sky. The boxwood bushes ran together into a single -sheet of black, the far peaks faded out of sight, the air grew keen and -sharp toward the dawn on the wave of wind the sunrise drives before it -round the world. But to and fro across the Irishman's mind as he lay -between sleep and dozing ran the feeling that his friends were close, and -that those dancing forms of cosmic life to which all three approximated -had come near once more to summon him. He also knew that what the -horse had felt was something far from terror. The animal instinctively -had divined the presence of something to which it, too, was remotely -kin. - -Rostom, however, remained keenly on the alert, much of the time -apparently praying. Not once did he touch the weapons that lay ready -to hand upon the folded burka ... and when at last the dawn came, pale -and yellow, through the trees, showing the outlines of the individual box -and azalea bushes, he got up earlier than usual and began to make the -fire for coffee. In the fuller light which soon poured swiftly over the -eastern summits and dropped gold and silver into the tremendous valley at -their feet, the men made a systematic search of the immediate -surroundings, and then of the clearings and more open stretches beyond. -In silence they made it. They found, however, no traces of another -camping-party. And it was clear from the way they went about the search -that neither expected to find anything. The ground was unbroken, the -bushes undisturbed. - -Yet still, both knew. That "something" which the night had brought -and kept concealed, still hovered close about them. - -And it was at this scattered hamlet, consisting of little more than -a farm of sorts and a few shepherds' huts of stone, where they stopped -two hours later for provisions, that O'Malley looked up thus suddenly -and recognized the figure of his friend. He stood among the trees a -hundred yards away. At first the other thought he was a tree--his -stalwart form the stem, his hair and beard the branches--so big and -motionless he stood between the other trunks. O'Malley saw him for a full -minute before he understood. The man seemed so absolutely a part of the -landscape, a giant detail in keeping with the rest--a detail that had -suddenly emerged. - -The same moment a great draught of wind, rising from depths of the -valley below, swept overhead with a roaring sound, shaking the beech -and box trees and setting all the golden azalea heads in a sudden -agitation. It passed as swiftly as it came. The peace of the June morning -again descended on the mountains. - -It was broken by a wild, half-smothered cry,--a cry of genuine terror. - -For O'Malley had turned to Rostom with some word that here, in this -figure, lay the explanation of the animal's excitement in the night, -when he saw that the peasant, white as chalk beneath the tangle of black -hair that covered his face, had stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth -was open, his arms upraised to shield; he was staring fixedly in the same -direction as himself. The next instant he was on his knees, bowing and -scraping toward Mecca, groaning, hiding his eyes with both hands. The -sack he held had toppled over; the cheese and flour rolled upon the -ground; and from the horse came that long-drawn whinnying of the -night. - -There was a momentary impression--entirely in the Irishman's mind, of -course,--that the whole landscape veiled a giant, rushing movement that -passed across it like a wave. The surface of the earth, it seemed, ran -softly quivering, as though that wind had stirred response together with -the trembling of the million leaves ... before it settled back again to -stillness. It passed in the flash of an eyelid. The earth lay tranquil in -repose. - -But, though the suddenness of the stranger's arrival might conceivably -have startled the ignorant peasant, with nerves already overwrought -from the occurrence of the night, O'Malley was not prepared for the -violence of the man's terror as shown by the immediate sequel. For after -several moments' prayer and prostration, with groans half smothered -against the very ground, he sprang impetuously to his feet again, turned -to his employer with eyes that gleamed wildly in that face of chalk, -cried out--the voice thick with the confusion of his fear--"It is the -Wind! _They_ come; from the mountains _they_ come! Older than the stones -they are. Save yourself.... Hide your eyes ... fly...!"--and was gone. -Like a deer he went. He waited neither for food nor payment, but flung -the great black burka round his face--and ran. - -And to O'Malley, bereft of all power of movement as he watched in -complete bewilderment, one thing seemed clear: the man went in this -extraordinary fashion because he was afraid of something he had _felt_, -not seen. For as he ran with wild and leaping strides, he did not run -away from the figure. He took the direction straight toward the spot -where the stranger still stood motionless as a tree. So close he passed -him that he must almost have brushed his very shoulder. He did not -see him. - -The last thing the Irishman noted was that in his violence the man -had dropped the yellow bashlik from his head. O'Malley saw him stoop -with a flying rush to pick it up. He seemed to catch it as it fell. - -And then the big figure moved. He came slowly forward from among -the trees, his hands outstretched in greeting, on his great visage a -shining smile of welcome that seemed to share the sunrise. In that moment -for the Irishman all was forgotten as though unknown, unseen, save the -feelings of extraordinary happiness that filled him to the brim. - - - - -XXX - -"The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for -the title of their order, 'Those who are free throughout the world.' They -are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us much more -service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, -when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of -any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a -man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he -forgets the authors and the public, and heeds only this one dream, which -holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, and you may have all -the arguments and histories and criticism." - ---EMERSON - - -To criticize, deny, perhaps to sneer, is no very difficult or uncommon -function of the mind, and the story as I first heard him tell it, -lying there in the grass beyond the Serpentine that summer evening, -roused in me, I must confess, all of these very ordinary faculties. Yet, -as I listened to his voice that mingled with the rustle of the poplars -overhead, and watched his eager face and gestures, it came to me dimly -that a man's mistakes may be due to his attempting bigger things than -his little critic ever dreamed perhaps. And gradually I shared the vision -that this unrhyming poet by my side had somehow lived out in action. - -Inner experience for him was ever the reality--not the mere forms -or deeds that clothe it in partial physical expression. - -There was no question, of course, that he had actually met this big, -inarticulate Russian on the steamer; that Stahl's part in the account was -unvarnished; that the boy had fallen on the deck from heart disease; and -that, after an interval, chance had brought O'Malley and the father -together again in this valley of the Central Caucasus. All that was as -literal as the superstitious terror of the Georgian peasant. Further, -that the Russian possessed precisely those qualities of powerful sympathy -with the other's hidden longings which the subtle-minded Celt had been -so quick to appropriate--this, too, was literal enough. Here, doubtless, -was the springboard whence he leaped into the stream of this -quasi-spiritual adventure with an eagerness of fine, whole-hearted belief -which must make this dull world a very wonderful place indeed to those -who know it; for it is the visioned faculty of correlating the commonest -event with the procession of august Powers that pass ever to and fro -behind life's swaying curtain, and of divining in the most ordinary of -yellow buttercups the golden fires of a dropped star. - -Again, for Terence O'Malley there seemed no definite line that marked off -one state of consciousness from another, just as there seems no given -instant when a man passes actually from sleep to waking, from pleasure to -pain, from joy to grief. There is, indeed, no fixed threshold between the -states of normal and abnormal consciousness. In this stranger he imagined -a sense of companionship that by some magic of alchemy transformed his -deep loneliness into joy, and satisfied his passionate yearnings by -bringing their subjective fulfillment within range. To have found -acceptance in his sight was thus a revolutionary fact in his existence. -While a part of my mind may have labeled it all as creative imagination, -another part recognized it as plainly true--because his being lived it -out without the least denial. - -He, at any rate, was not inventing; nor ever knew an instant's doubt. -He simply told me what had happened. The discrepancies--the omissions -in his written account especially--were simply due, I feel, to the -fact that his skill in words was not equal to the depth and brilliance of -the emotions that he experienced. But the fact remains: he did experience -them. His fairy tale convinced. - -His faith had made him whole--one with the Earth. The sense of -disunion between his outer and his inner self was gone. - -And now, as these two began their journey together into the wilder -region of these stupendous mountains, O'Malley says he realized clearly -that the change he had dreaded as an "inner catastrophe" simply would -mean the complete and final transfer of his consciousness from the -"without" to the "within." It would involve the loss only of what -constituted him a person among the external activities of the world -today. He would lose his life to find it. The deeper self thus quickened -by the stranger must finally assert its authority over the rest. To join -these Urwelt beings and share their eternal life of beauty close to the -Earth herself, he must shift the center. Only thus could he enter the -state before the "Fall"--that ancient Garden of the World-Soul, walled-in -so close behind his daily life--and know deliverance from the discontent -of modern conditions that so distressed him. - -To do this temporarily, perhaps, had long been possible to him--in -dream, in reverie, in those imaginative trances when he almost seemed -to leave his body altogether; but to achieve it permanently was something -more than any such passing disablement of the normal self. It involved, -he now saw clearly, that which he had already witnessed in the boy: the -final release of his Double in so-called death. - -Thus, as they made their way northwards, nominally toward the mighty -Elbruz and the borders of Swanetia, the Irishman knew in his heart that -they in reality came nearer to the Garden long desired, and to those -lofty Gates of horn and ivory that hitherto he had never found--because -he feared to let himself go. Often he had camped beneath the walls, had -smelt the flowers, heard the songs, and even caught glimpses of the life -that moved so gorgeously within. But the Gates themselves had never shone -for him, even against the sky of dream, because his vision had been -clouded by alarm. They swung, it had seemed to him before, in only one -direction--for those who enter: he had always hesitated, lost his way, -returned.... And many, like him, make the same mistake. Once in, there -need be no return, for in reality the walls spread outwards and--enclose -the entire world. - -Civilization and Humanity, the man of smaller vision had called out -to him as passwords to safety. Simplicity and Love, he now discovered, -were the truer clues. His big friend in silence taught him. Now he knew. - -For in that little hamlet their meeting had taken place--in silence. -No actual speech had passed. "You go--so?" the Russian conveyed by -a look and by a movement of his whole figure, indicating the direction; -and to the Irishman's assenting inclination of the head he made an -answering gesture that merely signified compliance with a plan already -known to both. "We go, together then." And, there and then, they -started, side by side. - -The suddenness of this concerted departure only seemed strange afterwards -when O'Malley looked back upon it, for at the time it seemed as -inevitable as being obliged to swim once the dive is taken. He stood -upon a pinnacle whence lesser details were invisible; he knew a kind of -exaltation--of loftier vision. Small facts that ordinarily might fill the -day with trouble sank below the horizon then. He did not even notice -that they went without food, horse, or blankets. It was reckless, -unrestrained, and utterly unhindered, this free setting-forth together. -Thus might he have gone upon a journey with the wind, the sunshine, or -the rain. Departure with a thought, a dream, a fancy could not have been -less unhampered. - -The only detail of his outer world that lingered--and that, already -sinking out of sight like a stone into deep water--was the image of the -running peasant. For a moment he recalled the picture. He saw the man -in the act of stooping after the fallen bashlik. He saw him seize it, -lift it to his head again. But the picture was small--already very far -away. Before the bashlik actually reached the head, the detail dipped -into mist and vanished.... - - - - -XXXI - - -It was spring--and the flutes of Pan played everywhere. The radiance -of the world's first morning shone undimmed. Life flowed and sang and -danced, abundant and untamed. It bathed the mountains and that sky of -stainless blue. It bathed him too. Dipped, washed, and shining in it, he -walked the Earth as she lay radiant in her early youth. The crystal -presence of her everlasting Spring flew laughing through a world of light -and flowers--flowers that none could ever pluck to die, light that could -never fade to darkness within walls and roofs. - -All day they wound easily, as though on winged feet, through the steep -belt of box and beech woods, and in sparkling brilliant heat across -open spaces where the azaleas shone; a cooling wind, fresh as the dawn, -seemed ever to urge them forwards. The country, for all its huge scale -and wildness, was park-like; the giant, bushy trees wore an air of being -tended by the big winds that ran with rustling music among their waving -foliage. Between the rhododendrons were avenues of turf, broad-gladed -pathways, yet older than the moon, from which a thousand gardeners -of wind and dew had gone but a moment before to care for others -further on. Over all brimmed up some primal, old-world beauty of a -simple life--some immemorial soft glory of the dawn. - -Closer and closer, deeper and deeper, ever swifter, ever more direct, -O'Malley passed down toward the heart of his mother's being. Along -the tenderest pathways of his inner being, so wee, so soft, so simple -that for most men they lie ignored or overgrown, he slipped with joy a -little nearer--one stage perhaps--toward Reality. - -Pan "blew in power" across these Caucasian heights and valleys. - -Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! - Piercing sweet by the river! -Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! -The sun on the hill forgot to die, -And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly - Came back to dream on the river - -In front his big leader, no longer blundering clumsily as on that toy -steamer with the awkward and lesser motion known to men, pressed -forward with a kind of giant sure supremacy along paths he knew, or -rather over a trackless, pathless world which the great planet had -charted lovingly for his splendid feet. That wind, blowing from the -depths of valleys left long since behind, accompanied them wisely. They -heard, not the faint horns of Elfland faintly blowing, but the blasts of -the _Urwelt_ trumpets growing out of the still distance, nearer, ever -nearer. For leagues below the beech woods poured over the enormous slopes -in a sea of soft green foam, and through the meadow spaces they saw the -sweet nakedness of running water, and listened to its song. At noon they -rested in the greater heat, sleeping beneath the shadow of big rocks; and -sometimes traveled late into the night, when the stars guided them and -they knew the pointing of the winds. The very moonlight then, that -washed this lonely world with silver, sheeting the heights of snow -beyond, was friendly, half divine ... and it seemed to O'Malley that -while they slept they were watched and cared for--as though Others -who awaited had already come halfway out to meet them. - -And ever, more and more, the passion of his happiness increased; he -knew himself complete, fulfilled, made whole. It was as though his Self -were passing outwards into hundreds of thousands, and becoming -countless as the sand. He was everywhere; in everything; shining, -singing, dancing.... With the ancient woods he breathed; slipped with the -streams down the still darkened valleys; called from each towering -summit to the Sun; and flew with all the winds across the immense, -untrodden slopes. About him lay this whole spread being of the flowered -Caucasus, huge and quiet, drinking in the sunshine at its leisure. But it -lay also _within_ himself, for his expanding consciousness included and -contained it. Through it--this early potent Mood of Nature--he passed -toward the Soul of the Earth within, even as a child, caught by a mood of -winning tenderness in its mother, passes closer to the heart that gave it -birth. Some central love enwrapped him. He knew the surrounding power of -everlasting arms. - - - - -XXXII - -"Inward, ay, deeper far than love or scorn, - Deeper than bloom of virtue, stain of sin, - Rend thou the veil and pass alone within, - Stand naked there and know thyself forlorn. - Nay! in what world, then, spirit, vast thou born? - Or to what World-Soul art thou entered in? - Feel the Self fade, feel the great life begin. - With Love re-rising in the cosmic morn. - The Inward ardor yearns to the inmost goal; - The endless goal is one with the endless way; - From every gulf the tides of Being roll, - From every zenith burns the indwelling day, - And life in Life has drowned thee and soul in Soul; - And these are God and thou thyself art they." - ---F.W.H. MYERS. From "A Cosmic Outlook" - - -The account of what followed simply swept me into fairyland, yet a -Fairyland that is true because it lives in every imaginative heart that -does not dream itself shut off from the Universe in some wee compartment -all alone. - -If O'Malley's written account, and especially his tumbled notebooks, -left me bewildered and confused, the fragments that he told me brought -this sense of an immense, sweet picture that actually existed. I caught -small scenes of it, set in some wild high light. Their very incoherence -conveyed the gorgeous splendor of the whole better than any neat ordered -sequence could possibly have done. - -Climax, in the story-book meaning, there was none. The thing flowed -round and round forever. A sense of something eternal wrapped me as -I listened; for his imagination set the whole adventure out of time and -space, and I caught myself dreaming too. "A thousand years in His -sight"--I understood the old words as refreshingly new--might be a day. -Thus felt that monk, perhaps, for whose heart a hundred years had passed -while he listened to the singing of a little bird. - -My practical questions--it was only at the beginning that I was dull -enough to ask them--he did not satisfy, because he could not. There -was never the least suggestion of the artist's mere invention. - -"You really felt the Earth about and in you," I had asked, "much as -one feels the presence of a friend and living person?" - -"Drowned in her, yes, as in the thoughts and atmosphere of some one -awfully loved." His voice a little trembled as he said it. - -"So speech unnecessary?" - -"Impossible--fatal," was the laconic, comprehensive reply, "limiting: -destructive even." - -That, at least, I grasped: the pitifulness of words before that love by -which self goes wholly lost in the being of another, adrift yet cared -for, gathered all wonderfully in. - -"And your Russian friend--your leader?" I ventured, haltingly. - -His reply was curiously illuminating:-- - -"Like some great guiding Thought within her mind--some flaming -_motif_--interpreting her love and splendor--leading me straight." - -"As you felt at Marseilles, a clue--a vital clue?" For I remembered -the singular phrase he had used in the notebook. - -"Not a bad word," he laughed; "certainly, as far as it goes, not a wrong -one. For he--_it_--was at the same time within myself. We merged, as -our life grew and spread. We swept things along with us from the banks. -We were in flood together," he cried. "We drew the landscape with us!" - -The last words baffled me; I found no immediate response. He pushed -away the plates on the table before us, where we had been lunching in -the back room of a dingy Soho restaurant. We now had the place to -ourselves. He drew his chair a little nearer. - -"Don't ye see--our journey also was _within_," he added abruptly. - -The pale London sunlight came through the window across chimneys, -dreary roofs, courtyards. Yet where it touched his face it seemed at -once to shine. His voice was warm and eager. I caught from him, as it -were, both heat and light. - -"You moved actually, though, over country--?" - -"While at the same time we moved within, advanced, sank deeper," -he returned; "call it what you will. Our condition moved. There was this -correspondence between the two. Over her face we walked, yet into her -as well. We 'traveled' with One greater than ourselves, both caught and -merged in her, in utter sympathy with one another as with herself..." - -This stopped me dead. I could not pretend more than a vague sympathetic -understanding with such descriptions of a mystical experience. Nor, it -was clear, did he expect it of me. Even his own heart was troubled, and -he knew he spoke of things that only few may deal with sanely, still -fewer hear with patience. - -But, oh, that little room in Greek Street smelt of forests, dew, and -dawn as he told it,--that dear wayward Child of Earth! For "his voice -fell, like music that makes giddy the dim brain, faint with intoxication -of keen joy." I watched those delicate hands he spread about him -through the air; the tender, sensitive lips, the light blue eyes that -glowed. I noted the real strength in the face,--a sort of nobility it -was--his shabby suit of grey, his tie never caught properly in the -collar, the frayed cuffs, and the enormous boots he wore even in -London--"policeman boots" as we used to call them with a laugh. - -So vivid was the picture that he painted! Almost, it seemed, I knew -myself the pulse of that eternal Spring beneath our feet, beating in vain -against the suffocating weight of London's bricks and pavements laid -by civilization--the Earth's delight striving to push outwards into -visible form as flowers. She flashed some scrap of meaning thus into -me, though blunted on the way, I fear, and crudely paraphrased. - -Yes, as he talked across the airless gloom of that little back room, in -some small way I caught the splendor of his vision. Behind the words, -I caught it here and there. My own wee world extended. My being stretched -to understand him and to net in fugitive fragments the scenes of wonder -that he knew complete. - -Perhaps his larger consciousness fringed my own to "bruise" it, as he -claimed the Earth had done to him, so that I glimpsed in tinier measure -an experience that in himself blazed whole and thundering. It was, I -must admit, exalting and invigorating, if a little breathless; and the -return to streets and omnibuses painful--a descent to ugliness and -disappointment. For things I can hardly understand now, even in my -own descriptions of them, seemed at the time quite clear--or clear-ish -at any rate. Whereas normally I could never have compassed them at all. - -It taught me: that, at least, I know. In some spiritual way I quickened -to the view that all great teaching really comes in some such curious -fashion--via a temporary stretching or extension of the "heart" to -receive it. The little normal self is pushed aside to make room, even to -the point of loss, in order to contain it. Later, the consciousness -contracts again. But it has expanded--and there has been growth. Was -this, I wondered, perhaps what mystics speak of when they say the -personal life must slip aside, be trampled on, submerged, before there -can be room for the divine Presences...? - -At any rate, as he talked there over coffee that grew cold and cigarette -smoke that made the air yet thicker than it naturally was, his words -conveyed with almost grandeur of conviction this reality of a profound -inner experience. I shared in some faint way its truth and beauty, so -that when I saw it in his written form I marveled to find the thing so -thin and cold and dwindled. The key his personal presence supplied, of -guidance and interpretation, of course was gone. - - - - -XXXIII - -"Why, what is this patient entrance into Nature's deep resources - But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane? - When we drive out, from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses, - Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane?" - ---E.B. BROWNING - - -The "Russian" led. - -O'Malley styled him thus to the end for want of a larger word, perhaps--a -word to phrase the inner and the outer. Although the mountains were -devoid of trails, he seemed always certain of his way. An absolute -sense of orientation possessed him; or, rather, the whole earth became -a single pathway. Her being, in and about their hearts, concealed no -secrets; he knew the fresh, cool water-springs as surely as the corners -where the wild honey gathered. It seemed as natural that the bees should -leave them unmolested, giving them freely of their store, as that the -savage dogs in the aouls, or villages, they passed so rarely now, should -refrain from attack. Even the peasants shared with them some common, -splendid life. Occasionally they passed an Ossetian on horseback, a rifle -swung across his saddle, a covering burka draping his shoulders and the -animal's haunches in a single form that seemed a very outgrowth of the -mountains. But not even a greeting was exchanged. They passed in silence; -often very close, as though they did not see these two on foot. And once -or twice the horses reared and whinnied, while their riders made the -signs of their religion.... Sentries they seemed. But for the password -known to both they would have stopped the travelers. In these forsaken -fastnesses mere unprotected wandering means death. Yet to the happy -Irishman there never came a thought of danger or alarm. All was a portion -of himself, and no man can be afraid of his own hands or feet. Their -convoy was immense, invisible, a guaranteed security of the vast Earth -herself. No little personal injury could pass so huge defense. Others, -armed with a lesser security of knives and guns and guides, would -assuredly have been turned back, or had they shown resistance, would -never have been heard to tell the tale. Dr. Stahl and the fur-merchant, -for instance-- - -But such bothering little thoughts with their hard edges no longer -touched reality; they spun away and found no lodgment; they were--untrue; -false items of some lesser world unrealized. - -For, in proportion as he fixed his thoughts successfully on outward and -physical things, the world wherein he now walked grew dim: he missed the -path, stumbled, saw trees and flowers indistinctly, failed to hear -properly the call of birds and wind, to feel the touch of sun; and, -most unwelcome of all,--was aware that his leader left him, dwindling -in size, dropping away somehow among shadows far behind or far ahead. - -The inversion was strangely complete: what men called solid, real, and -permanent he now knew as the veriest shadows of existence, fleeting, -unsatisfactory, false. - -Their dreary make-believe had all his life oppressed him. He now knew -why. Men, driving their forces outwards for external possessions had lost -the way so utterly. It truly was amazing. He no longer quite understood -how such feverish strife was possible to intelligent beings: the -fur-merchant, the tourists, his London friends, the great majority of -men and women he had known, pain in their hearts and weariness in -their eyes, the sad strained faces, the furious rush to catch a little -pleasure they deemed joy. It seemed like some wild senseless game that -madness plays. He found it difficult to endow them, one and all, with any -sense of life. He saw them groping in thick darkness, snatching with -hands of shadow at things of even thinner shadow, all moving in a wild -and frantic circle of artificial desires, while just beyond, absurdly -close to many, blazed this great living sunshine of Reality and Peace and -Beauty. If only they would turn--and look _within_--! - -In fleeting moments these sordid glimpses of that dark and shadow-world -still afflicted his outer sight--the nightmare he had left behind. It -played like some gloomy memory through a corner of consciousness not yet -wholly disentangled from it. Already he burned to share his story with -the world...! A few he saw who here and there half turned, touched by a -flashing ray--then rushed away into the old blackness as though -frightened, not daring to escape. False images thrown outward by the -intellect prevented. Stahl he saw ... groping; a soft light of yearning -in his eyes ... a hand outstretched to push the shadows from him, yet -ever gathering them instead.... Men he saw by the million, youth still in -their hearts, yet slaving in darkened trap-like cages not merely to earn -a competency but to pile more gold for things not really wanted; faces -of greed round gambling-tables; the pandemonium of Exchanges; even fair -women, playing Bridge through all a summer afternoon--the strife and lust -and passion for possessions degrading every heart, choking the channels -of simplicity.... Over the cities of the world he heard the demon -Civilization sing its song of terror and desolation. Its music of -destruction shook the nations. He saw the millions dance. And mid the -bewildering ugly thunder of that sound few could catch the small sweet -voice played by the Earth upon the little Pipes of Pan... the fluting -call of Nature to the Simple Life--which is the Inner. - -For now, as he moved closer to the Earth, deeper ever deeper into the -enfolding moods of her vast collective consciousness, he drew nearer -to the Reality that satisfies. He approached that center where outward -activity is less, yet energy and vitality far greater--because it is at -rest. Here he met things halfway, as it were, _en route_ for the outer -physical world where they would appear later as "events," but not yet -emerged, still alive and breaking with their undischarged and natural -potencies. Modern life, he discerned, dealt only with these forces when -they had emerged, masquerading at the outer rim of life as complete -embodiments, whereas actually they are but partial and symbolical -expressions of their eternal prototypes behind. And men today were busy -at this periphery only, touch with the center lost, madly consumed with -the unimportant details that concealed the inner glory. It was the spirit -of the age to mistake the outer shell for the inner reality. He at last -understood the reason of his starved loneliness amid the stupid uproar -of latter-day life, why he distrusted "Civilization," and stood apart. -His yearnings were explained. His heart dwelt ever in the Golden Age of -the Earth's first youth, and at last--he was coming home. - -Like mud settling in dirty water, the casual realities of that outer life -all sank away. He grew clear within, one with the primitive splendor, -beauty, grace of a fresh world. Over his inner self, flooding slowly the -passages and cellars, those subterranean ways that honeycomb the dim-lit -foundations of personality, this tide of power rose. Filling chamber -after chamber, melting down walls and ceiling, eating away divisions -softly and irresistibly, it climbed in silence, merging all moods and -disunion of his separate Selves into the single thing that made him -comprehensible to himself and able to know the Earth as Mother. He -saw himself whole; he knew himself divine. A strange tumult as of some -ecstasy of old remembrance invaded him. He dropped back into a more -spacious scale of time, long long ago when a month might be a moment, -or a thousand years pass round him as a single day.... - -The qualities of all the Earth lay too, so easily contained, within -himself. He understood that old legend by which man the microcosm -represents and sums up Earth, the macrocosm in himself, so that Nature -becomes the symbol and interpreter of his inner being. The strength -and dignity of the trees he drew into himself; the power of the wind was -his; with his unwearied feet ran all the sweet and facile swiftness of -the rivulets, and in his thoughts the graciousness of flowers, the wavy -softness of the grass, the peace of open spaces and the calm of that vast -sky. The murmur of the _Urwelt_ was in his blood, and in his heart the -exaltation of her golden Mood of Spring. - -How, then, could speech be possible, since both shared this common life? -The communion with his friend and leader was too profound and perfect -for any stammering utterance in the broken, partial symbols known as -language. This was done for them: the singing of the birds, the -wind-voices, the rippling of water, the very humming of the myriad -insects even, and rustling of the grass and leaves, shaped all they felt -in some articulate expression that was right, complete, and adequate. The -passion of the larks set all the sky to music, and songs far sweeter than -the nightingales' made every dusk divine. - -He understood now that laborious utterance of his friend upon the -steamer, and why his difficulty with words was more than he could -overcome. - -Like a current in the sea he still preserved identity, yet knew the -freedom of a boundless being. And meanwhile the tide was ever rising. -With this singular companion he neared that inner realization which -should reveal them as they were--Thoughts in the Earth's old -Consciousness too primitive, too far away, too vital and terrific to be -confined in any outward physical expression of the "civilized" world -today.... The earth shone, glittered, sang, holding them close to the -rhythm of her gigantic heart. Her glory was their own. In the blazing -summer of the inner life they floated, happy, caught away, at peace ... -emanations of her living Self. - - * * * * * - -The valleys far below were filled with mist, cutting them off literally -from the world of men, but the beauty of the upper mountains grew more -and more bewilderingly enticing. The scale was so immense, while the -brilliant clearness of the air brought distance close before the eyes, -altered perspective, and robbed "remote" and "near" of any definite -meaning. Space fled away. It shifted here and there at pleasure, -according as they felt. It was within them, not without. They passed, -dispersed and swift about the entire landscape, a very part of it, -diffused in terms of light and air and color, scattered in radiance, -distributed through flowers, spread through the sky and grass and -forests. Space is a form of thought. But they no longer "thought": they -felt.... O, that prodigious, clean, and simple Feeling of the Earth! Love -that redeems and satisfies! Power that fills and blesses! Electric -strength that kills the germ of separateness, making whole! The medicine -of the world! - -For days and nights it was thus--or was it years and minutes?--while -they skirted the slopes and towers of the huge Dykh-Taou, and Elbrous, -supreme and lonely in the heavens, beckoned solemnly. The snowy -Kochtan-Taou rolled past, yet through, them; Kasbek superbly thundered; -hosts of lesser summits sang in the dawn and whispered to the -stars. And longing sank away--impossible. - -"My boy, my boy, could you only have been with me...!" broke his -voice across the splendid dream, bringing me back to the choking, dingy -room I had forgotten. It was like a cry--a cry of passionate yearning. - -"I'm with you now," I murmured, some similar rising joy half breaking in -my breast. "That's something--" - -He sighed in answer. "Something, perhaps. But I have got it always; it's -all still part of me. Oh, oh! that I could give it to the world and lift -the ache of all humanity...!" His voice trembled. I saw the moisture of -immense compassion in his eyes. I felt myself swim out into universal -being. - -"Perhaps," I stammered half beneath my breath, "perhaps some day you -may...!" - -He shook his head. His face turned very sad. - -"How should they listen, much less understand? Their energies drive -outwards, and separation is their God. There is no 'money in it'...!" - - - - -XXXIV - -"Oh! whose heart is not stirred with tumultuous joy when the intimate -Life of Nature enters into his soul with all its plenitude, ... when that -mighty sentiment for which language has no other name than Love is -diffused in him, like some powerful all-dissolving vapor; when he, -shivering with sweet terror, sinks into the dusky, enticing bosom of -Nature; when the meager personality loses itself in the overpowering -waves of passion, and nothing remains but the focal point of the -incommensurable generative Force, an engulfing vortex in the ocean?" - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Sais._ Translated by U.C.B. - - -Early in the afternoon they left the bigger trees behind, and passed -into that more open country where the shoulders of the mountains were -strewn with rhododendrons. These formed no continuous forest, but -stood about in groups some twenty-five feet high, their rounded masses -lighted on the surface with fires of mauve and pink and purple. When -the wind stirred them, and the rattling of their stiff leaves was heard, -it seemed as if the skin of the mountains trembled to shake out colored -flames. The air turned radiant through a mist of running tints. - -Still climbing, they passed along broad glades of turfy grass between -the groups. More rapidly now, O'Malley says, went forward that inner -change of being which accompanied the progress of their outer selves. -So intimate henceforth was this subtle correspondence that the very -landscape took the semblance of their feelings. They moved as -"emanations" of the landscape. Each melted in the other, dividing lines -all vanished. - -Their union with the Earth approached this strange and sweet fulfillment. - -And so it was that, though at this height the vestiges of bird and -animal life were wholly gone, there grew more and more strongly the -sense that, in their further depths and shadows, these ancient bushes -screened Activities even more ancient than themselves. Life, only -concealed because they had not reached its plane of being, pulsed -everywhere about their pathway, immense in power, moving swiftly, very -grand and very simple, and sometimes surging close, seeking to draw them -in. More than once, as they moved through glade and clearing, the -Irishman knew thrills of an intoxicating happiness, as this abundant, -driving life brushed past him. It came so close, it glided before his -eyes, yet still was viewless. It strode behind him and before, peered -down through space upon him, lapped him about with the stir of mighty -currents. The deep suction of its invitation caught his soul, urging the -change within himself more quickly forward. Huge and delightful, he -describes it, awful, yet bringing no alarm. - -He was always on the point of seeing. Surely the next turning would -reveal; beyond the next dense, tangled group would come--disclosure; -behind that clustered mass of purple blossoms, shaking there mysteriously -in the wind, some half-veiled countenance of splendor watched -and welcomed! Before his face passed swift, deific figures, tall, erect, -compelling, charged with this ancient, golden life that could never -wholly pass away. And only just beyond the fringe of vision. Vision -already strained upon the edge. His consciousness stretched more and -more to reach them, while They came crowding near to let him know -inclusion. - -These projections of the Earth's old consciousness moved thick and -soft about them, eternal in their giant beauty. Soon he would know, -perhaps, the very forms in which she had projected them--dear portions -of her streaming life the earliest races half divined and worshipped, and -never quite withdrawn. Worship could still entice them out. A single -worshipper sufficed. For worship meant retreat into the heart where still -they dwelt. And he had loved and worshipped all his life. - -And always with him, now at his side or now a little in advance, his -leader moved in power, with vigorous, springing gestures like to dancing, -singing that old tuneless song of the wind, happier even than himself. - -The splendor of the _Urwelt_ closed about them. They drew nearer to -the Gates of that old Garden, the first Time ever knew, whose frontiers -were not less than the horizons of the entire world. For this lost Eden -of a Golden Age when "first God dawned on chaos" still shone within -the soul as in those days of innocence before the "Fall," when men first -separated themselves from their great Mother. - -A little before sunset they halted. A hundred yards above the -rhododendron forest, in a clear wide space of turf that ran for leagues -among grey boulders to the lips of the eternal snowfields, they waited. -Through a gap of sky, with others but slightly lower than himself, the -pyramid of Kasbek, grim and towering, stared down upon them, dreadfully -close though really miles away. At their feet yawned the profound -valley they had climbed. Halfway into it, unable to reach the depths, -the sun's last rays dropped shafts like rivers slanting. Already in soft -troops the shadows crept downwards from the eastern-facing summits -overhead. - -Out of these very shadows Night drew swiftly down about the world, -building with her masses of silvery architecture a barrier that rose to -heaven. These two lay down beside it. Beyond it spread that shining -Garden...only the shadow-barrier between. - -With the rising of the moon this barrier softened marvelously, letting -the starbeams in. It trembled like a line of wavering music in the wind -of night. It settled downwards, shaking a little, toward the ground, -while just above them came a curving inwards like a bay of darkness, with -overhead two stately towers, their outline fringed with stars. - -"The Gateway...!" whispered something through the mountains. - -It may have been the leader's voice; it may have been the Irishman's own -leaping thought; it may have been merely a murmur from the rhododendron -leaves below. It came sifting gently through the shadows. O'Malley knew. -He followed his leader higher. Just beneath this semblance of an -old-world portal which Time could neither fashion nor destroy, they lay -upon the earth--and waited. Beside them shone the world, dressed by the -moon in silver. The wind stood still to watch. The peak of Kasbek from -his cloudy distance listened too. - -For, floating upwards across the spaces came a sound of simple, -old-time piping--the fluting music of a little reed. It drew near, -stopped for a moment as though the player watched them; then, with a -plunging swiftness, passed off through starry distance up among the -darker mountains. The lost, forsaken Asian valley covered them. Nowhere -were they extraneous to it. They slept. And while they slept, they moved -across the frontiers of fulfillment. - -The moon-blanched Gate of horn and ivory swung open. The consciousness -of the Earth possessed them. They passed within. - - - - -XXXV - -"For of old the Sun, our sire, - Came wooing the mother of men, - Earth, that was virginal then, -Vestal fire to his fire. -Silent her bosom and coy, - But the strong god sued and press'd; -And born of their starry nuptial joy - Are all that drink of her breast. - -"And the triumph of him that begot, - And the travail of her that bore, - Behold they are evermore -As warp and weft in our lot. -We are children of splendor and flame, - Of shuddering, also, and tears. -Magnificent out of the dust we came, - And abject from the spheres. - -"O bright irresistible lord! - We are fruit of Earth's womb, each one, - And fruit of thy loins, O Sun, -Whence first was the seed outpour'd. -To thee as our Father we bow, - Forbidden thy Father to see, -Who is older and greater than thou, as thou - Art greater and older than we." - ---WILLIAM WATSON, "Ode in May" - - -Very slowly the dawn came. The sky blushed rose, trembled, flamed. A -breath of wind stirred the vapors that far below sheeted the surface -of the Black Sea. But it was still in that gentle twilight before -the actual color comes that O'Malley found he was lying with his eyes -wide open, watching the rhododendrons. He may have slept meanwhile, -though "sleep," he says, involving loss of consciousness, seemed no -right description. A sense of interval there was at any rate, a -"transition-blank,"--whatever that may mean--he phrased it in the -writing. - -And, watching the rhododendron forest a hundred yards below, he saw it -move. Through the dim light this movement passed and ran, here, there, -and everywhere. A curious soft sound accompanied it that made him -remember the Bible phrase of wind "going in the tops of the mulberry -trees." Hushed, swift, elusive murmur, it passed about him through the -dusk. He caught it next behind him and, turning, noticed groups upon the -slopes,--groups that he had not seen the night before. These groups -seemed also now to move; the isolated scattered clusters came together, -merged, ran to the parent forest below, or melted just beyond the line of -vision above. - -The wind sprang up and rattled all the million leaves. That rattling -filled the air, and with it came another, deeper sound like to a sound -of tramping that seemed to shake the earth. Confusion caught him then -completely, for it was as if the mountain-side awoke, rose up, and shook -itself into a wild and multitudinous wave of life. - -At first he thought the wind had somehow torn the rhododendrons loose -from their roots and was strewing them with that tramping sound about the -slopes. But the groups passed too swiftly over the turf for that, swept -completely from their fastenings, while the tramping grew to a roaring as -of cries and voices. That roaring had the quality of the voice that -reached him weeks ago across the AEgean Sea. A strange, keen odor, too, -that was not wholly unfamiliar, moved upon the wind. - -And then he knew that what he had been watching all along were not -rhododendrons at all, but living, splendid creatures. A host of others, -moreover, large ones and small together, stood shadowy in the background, -stamping their feet upon the turf, manes tossing in the early wind, in -their entire mass awful as in their individual outline somehow noble. - -The light spread upwards from the east. With a fire of terrible joy and -wonder in his heart, O'Malley held his breath and stared. The luster of -their glorious bodies, golden bronze in the sunlight, dazed the sight. -He saw the splendor of ten hundred velvet flanks in movement, with here -and there the uprising whiteness of a female outline that flashed and -broke above the general mass like foam upon a great wave's crest--figures -of incomparable grace and power; the sovereign, upright carriage; the -rippling muscles upon massive limbs, and shoulders that held defiant -strength and softness in exquisite combination. And then he heard huge -murmurs of their voices that filled the dawn, aged by lost thousand -years, and sonorous as the booming of the sea. A cry that was like -singing escaped him. He saw them rise and sweep away. There was -a rush of magnificence. They cantered--wonderfully. They were gone. - -The roar of their curious commotion traveled over the mountains, -dying into distance very swiftly. The rhododendron forest that had -concealed their approach resumed its normal aspect, but burning now -with colors innumerable as the sunrise caught its thousand blossoms. -And O'Malley understood that during "sleep" he had passed with his -companion through the gates of ivory and horn, and stood now within -the first Garden of the early world. All frontiers crossed, all -barriers behind, he stood within the paradise of his heart's desire. -The Consciousness of the Earth included him. These were early forms -of life she had projected--some of the living prototypes of legend, -myth, and fable--embodiments of her first manifestations of -consciousness, and eternal, accessible to every heart that holds a -true and passionate worship. All his life this love of Nature, which -was worship, had been his. It now fulfilled itself. Merged by love -into the consciousness of the Being loved, he _felt_ her -thoughts, her powers, and manifestations of life as his own. - -In a flash, of course, this all passed clearly before him; but there -was no time to dwell upon it. For the activity of his companion had -likewise become suddenly tremendous. He had risen into complete -revelation at last. His own had called him. He was off to join his -kind. - -The transformation came upon both of them, it seems, at once, but -in that moment of bewilderment, the Irishman only realized it first in -his leader. - -For on the edge of the advancing sunlight first this Cosmic Being -crouched, then rose with alert and springing movement, leaping to his -feet in a single bound that propelled him with a stride of more than a -man's two limbs. His great sides quivered as he shook himself. A roar, -similar to that sound the distance already swallowed, rolled forth -into the air. With head thrown back, chest forward, too, for all the -backward slant of the mighty shoulders, he stood there, grandly -outlined, pushing the wind before him. The great brown eyes shone -with the joy of freedom and escape--a superb and regal transformation. - -Urged by the audacity of his strange excitement, the Irishman obeyed -an impulse that came he knew not whence. The single word sprang to -his lips before he could guess its meaning, much less hold it back. - -"Lapithae...!" he cried aloud; "Lapithae...!" - -The stalwart figure turned with an awful spring as though it would -trample him to the ground. A moment the brown eyes flamed with a light of -battle. Then, with another roar, and a gesture that was somehow both huge -and simple, he seemed to rise and paw the air. The next second this -figure of the _Urwelt_, come once more into its own, bent down and -forward, leaped wonderfully--then, cantering, raced away across the -slopes to join his kind. He went like a shape of wind and cloud. The -heritage of racial memory was his, and certain words remained still -vividly evocative. That old battle with the Lapithae was but one item of -the scenes of ancient splendor lying pigeon-holed in his mighty Mother's -consciousness. The instant he had called, the Irishman himself lay caught -in lost memory's tumultuous whirl. The lonely world about him seemed of a -sudden magnificently peopled--sky, woods, and torrents. - -He watched a moment the fierce rapidity with which he sped toward the -mountains, the sound of his feet already merged in that other, vaster -tramping, and then he turned--to watch himself. For a similar -transformation was going forward in himself, and with the happiness of -wild amazement he saw it. Already, indeed, it was accomplished. All white -and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his -limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream -of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more -capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the -wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew -that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran. - -He ran, yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards -through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours brandishing -his arms he flew with a free, unfettered motion, traversing the surface -of the mother's mind and body. Free of the entire Earth he was. - -And as he raced to join the others, there passed again across his memory -faintly--it was like the little memory of some physical pain almost--the -picture of the boy who swam so strangely in the sea, the picture of the -parent's curious emanations on the deck, and, lastly, of those flying -shapes of cloud and wind his inner vision brought so often speeding over -long, bare hills. This was the final fragment of the outer world that -reached him.... - -He tore along the mountains in the dawn, the awful speed at last -explained. His going made a sound upon the wind, and like the wind -he raced. Far beyond him in the distance, he saw the shadow of that -disappearing host spreading upon the valleys like a mist. Faintly still -he caught their sound of roaring; but it was his own feet now that made -that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf. The landscape moved and opened, -gathering him in.... - -And, hardly had he gone, when there stole upon the place where he -had stood, a sweet and simple sound of music--the little piping of a -reed. It dropped down through the air, perhaps, or came from the forest -edge, or possibly the sunrise brought it--this ancient little sound of -fluting on those Pipes men call the Pipes of Pan.... - - - - -XXXVI - -"Here we but peak and dwindle - The clank of chain and crane, - The whirr of crank and spindle - Bewilder heart and brain; - The ends of our endeavor - Are wealth and fame, - Yet in the still Forever - We're one and all the same; - -"Yet beautiful and spacious - The wise, old world appears. - Yet frank and fair and gracious - Outlaugh the jocund years. - Our arguments disputing, - The universal Pan - Still wanders fluting--fluting-- - Fluting to maid and man. - Our weary well-a-waying - His music cannot still: - Come! let us go a-maying, - And pipe with him our fill." - ---W.E. HENLEY - - -In a detailed description, radiant with a wild loveliness of some -forgotten beauty, and of necessity often incoherent, the Irishman -conveyed to me, sitting in that dreary Soho restaurant, the passion of -his vision. With an astonishing vitality and a wealth of deep conviction -it all poured from his lips. There was no halting and no hesitation. Like -a man in trance he talked, and like a man in trance he lived it over -again while imparting it to me. None came to disturb us in our dingy -corner. Indeed there is no quieter place in all London town than the back -room of these eating-houses of the French Quarter between the hours of -lunch and dinner. The waiters vanish, the "patron" disappears; no -customers come in. But I know surely that its burning splendor came not -from the actual words he used, but was due to definite complete -transference of the vision itself into my own heart. I caught the fire -from his very thought. His heat inflamed my mind. Words, both in the -uttered and the written version, dimmed it all distressingly. - -And the completeness of the transference is proved for me by the fact -that I never once had need to ask a question. I saw and understood it -all as he did. And hours must have passed during the strange recital, for -toward the close people came in and took the vacant tables, the lights -were up, and grimy waiters clattered noisily about with plates and knives -and forks, thrusting an inky carte du jour beneath our very faces. - -Yet how to set it down I swear I know not. Nor he, indeed. The -notebooks that I found in that old sack of Willesden canvas were a -disgrace to any man who bid for sanity,--a disgrace to paper and pencil -too! - -All memory of his former life, it seems, at first, had fallen utterly -away; nothing survived to remind him of it; and thus he lost all standard -of comparison. The state he moved in was too complete to admit of -standards or of critical judgment. For these confine, imprison, and -belittle, whereas he was free. His escape was unconditioned. From the -thirty years of his previous living, no single fragment broke through. -The absorption was absolute. - -"I really do believe and know myself," he said to me across that -spotted table-cloth, "that for the time I was merged into the being of -another, a being immensely greater than myself. Perhaps old Stahl was -right, perhaps old crazy Fechner; and it actually was the consciousness -of the Earth. I can only tell you that the whole experience left no room -in me for other memories; all I had previously known was gone, wiped -clean away. Yet much of what came in its place is beyond me to describe; -and for a curious reason. It's not the size or splendor that prevent the -telling, but rather the sublime simplicity of it all. I know no language -today simple enough to utter it. Far behind words it lies, as difficult -of full recovery as the dreams of deep sleep, as the ecstasy of the -religious, elusive as the mystery of Kubla Khan or the Patmos visions of -St. John. Full recapture, I am convinced, is not possible at all in -words. - -"And at the time it did not seem like vision; it was so natural; -unstudied, unprepared, and ever there; spontaneous too and artless as -a drop of water or a baby's toy. The natural is ever the unchanging. My -God! I tell you, man, it was divine!" - -He made about him a vehement sweeping gesture with his arm which -emphasized more poignantly than speech the contrast he felt here where -we sat--tight, confining walls, small stifling windows, chairs to rest -the body, smothering roof and curtains, doors of narrow entrance and -exit, floors to lift above the sweet surface of the soil,--all of them -artificial barriers to shut out light and separate away from the Earth. -"See what we've come to!" it said plainly. And it included even his -clothes and boots and collar, the ridiculous hat upon the peg, the -unsightly "brolly" in the dingy corner. Had there been room in me for -laughter, I could well have laughed aloud. - - * * * * * - -For as he raced across that stretch of splendid mountainous Earth, -watching the sunrise kiss the valleys and the woods, shaking the dew -from his feet and swallowing the very wind for breath, he realized that -other forms of life similar to his own were everywhere about him--also -moving. - -"They were a part of the Earth even as I was. Here she was crammed -to the brim with them--projections of her actual self and being, -crowded with this incomparable ancient beauty that was strong as her -hills, swift as her running streams, radiant as her wild flowers. Whether -to call them forms or thoughts or feelings, or Powers perhaps, I swear, -old man, I know not. Her Consciousness through which I sped, drowned, -lost, and happy, wrapped us all in together as a mood contains its own -thoughts and feelings. For she _was_ a Being--of sorts. And I _was_ -in her mind, mood, consciousness, call it what you best can. These -other thoughts and presences I felt were the raw material of forms, -perhaps--Forces that when they reach the minds of men must clothe -themselves in form in order to be known, whether they be Dreams, or Gods, -or any other kind of inspiration. Closer than that I cannot get.... I -knew myself within her being like a child, and I felt the deep, eternal -pull--to simple things." - - * * * * * - -And thus the beauty of the early world companioned him, and all the -forgotten gods moved forward into life. They hovered everywhere, -immense and stately. The rocks and trees and peaks that half concealed -them, betrayed at the same time great hints of their mighty gestures. -Near him, they were; he moved toward their region. If definite sight -refused to focus on them the fault was not their own but his. He never -doubted that they could be seen. Yet, even thus partially, they -manifested--terrifically. He was aware of their overshadowing presences. -Sight, after all, was an incomplete form of knowing--a thing he had left -behind--elsewhere. It belonged, with the other limited sense-channels, -to some attenuated dream now all forgotten. Now he knew _all over._ He -himself was of them. - -"I am home!" it seems he cried as he ran cantering across the sunny -slopes. "At last I have found you! Home...!" and the stones shot wildly -from his thundering tread. - -A roar of windy power filled the sky, and far away that echoing -tramping paused to listen. - -"We have called you! Come...!" - -And the forms moved down slowly from their mountainous pedestals; -the woods breathed out a sigh; the running water sang; the slopes -all murmured through their grass and flowers. For a worshipper, strayed -from the outer world of the dead, stood within the precincts of their -ancient temple. He had passed the Angel with the flaming sword those -very dead had set there long ago. The Garden now enclosed him. He -had found the heart of the Earth, his mother. Self-realization in the -perfect union with Nature was fulfilled. He knew the Great At-onement. - - * * * * * - -The quiet of the dawn still lay upon the world; dew sparkled; the air was -keen and fresh. Yet, in spite of all this vast sense of energy, this -vigor and delight, O'Malley no longer felt the least goading of -excitement. There was this animation and this fine delight; but craving -for sensation of any kind, was gone. Excitement, as it tortured men in -that outer world he had left, could not exist in this larger state of -being; for excitement is the appetite for something not possessed, -magnified artificially till it has become a condition of disease. All -that he needed was now contained within himself; he was at-ease; and, -literally, that unrest which men miscall delight could touch him not nor -torture him again. - -If this were death--how exquisite! - -And Time was not a passing thing, for it lay, he says, somehow in an -ocean everywhere, heaped up in gulfs and spaces. It was as though he -could help himself and take it. That morning, had he so wished, could -last forever; he could go backwards and taste the shadows of the night -again, or forward and bask in the glory of hot noon. There were no parts -of things, and so no restlessness, no sense of incompleteness, no -divisions. - -This quiet of the dawn lay in himself, and, since he loved it, lay there, -cool and sweet and sparkling for--years; almost--forever. - - * * * * * - -Moreover, while this giant form of _Urwelt_-life his inner self had -assumed was new, it yet seemed somehow familiar. The speed and weight -and power caused him no distress, there was no detail that he could not -manage easily. To race thus o'er the world, keeping pace with an eternal -dawn, was as simple as for the Earth herself to spin through space. His -union with her was as complete as that. In every item of her being lay -the wonder of her perfect form--a sphere. It was complete. Nothing -could add to it. - -Yet, while all recollection of his former, pettier self was gone, he -began presently to remember--men. Though never in relation to himself, he -retained dimly a picture of that outer world of strife and terror. As a -memory of illness he recalled it--dreadfully, a nightmare fever from -which he had recovered, its horror already fading out. Cities and crowds, -poverty, illness, pain and all the various terror of Civilization, robbed -of the power to afflict, yet still hung hovering about the surface of his -consciousness, though powerless to break his peace. - -For the power to understand it vanished; no part of him knew sympathy -with it; so clearly he now saw himself sharing the Earth, that a vague -wonder filled him when he recalled the mad desires of men to possess -external forms of things. It was amazing and perplexing. How could they -ever have devised such wild and childish efforts--all in the -wrong direction? - -If that outer life were the real one how could any intelligent being -think it worth while to live? How could any thinking man hold up his -head and walk along the street with dignity if that was what he believed? -Was a man satisfied with it worth keeping alive at all? What bigger -scheme could ever use him? The direction of modern life today was -diametrically away from happiness and truth. - -Peace was the word he knew, peace and a singing joy. - - * * * * * - -He played with the Earth's great dawn and raced along these mountains -through her mind. _Of course>_ the hills could dance and sing and clap -their hands. He saw it clear. How could it be otherwise? They were -expressions of her giant moods--what in himself were thoughts--phases -of her ample, surging Consciousness.... - -He passed with the sunlight down the laughing valleys, spread with -the morning wind above the woods, shone on the snowy peaks, and -leaped with rushing laughter among the crystal streams. These were his -swift and darting signs of joy, words of his singing as it were. His main -and central being swung with the pulse of the Earth, too great for any -telling. - -He read the book of Nature all about him, yes, but read it singing. -He understood how this patient Mother hungered for her myriad lost -children, how in the passion of her summers she longed to bless them, -to wake their high yearnings with the sweetness of her springs, and to -whisper through her autumns how she prayed for their return...! - -Instinctively he read the giant Page before him. For "every form in -nature is a symbol of an idea and represents a sign or letter. A -succession of such symbols forms a language; and he who is a true child -of nature may understand this language and know the character of -everything. His mind, becomes a mirror wherein the attributes of natural -things are reflected and enter the field of his consciousness.... For man -himself is but a thought pervading the ocean of mind." - -Whether or not lie remembered these stammering yet pregnant words from -the outer world now left behind, the truth they shadowed forth rose up -and took him ... and so he flowed across the mountains like a thing of -wind and cloud, and so at length came up with the stragglers of that -mighty herd of _Urwelt_ life. He joined them in a river-bed of those -ancient valleys. They welcomed him and took him to themselves. - - * * * * * - -For the particular stratum, as it were, of the Earth's enormous -Collective Consciousness to which he belonged, or rather that part and -corner in which he was first at home, lay with these lesser ancient -forms. Although aware of far mightier expressions of her life, he could -not yet readily perceive or join them. And this was easily comprehensible -by the analogy of his own smaller consciousness. Did not his own mind -hold thoughts of various kinds that could not readily mingle? His -thoughts of play and frolic, for instance, could not combine with the -august and graver sentiments of awe and worship, though both could -dwell together in the same heart. And here apparently, as yet, he only -touched that frolicsome fringe of consciousness that knew these wild -and playful lesser forms. Thus, while he was aware of other more -powerful figures of wonder all about him, he never quite achieved their -full recognition. The ordered, deeper strata of her Consciousness to -which they belonged still lay beyond him. - -Yet everywhere he fringed them. They haunted the entire world. They -brooded hugely with a kind of deep magnificence that was like the slow -brooding of the Seasons; they rose, looming and splendid, through the -air and sky, proud, strong, and tragic. For, standing aloof from all the -rest, in isolation, like dreams in a poet's mind, too potent for -expression, they thus knew tragedy--the tragedy of long neglect and -loneliness. - -Seated on peak and ridge, rising beyond the summits in the clouds, -filling the valleys, spread over watercourse and forest, they passed -their life of lonely majesty--apart, their splendor too remote for him as -yet to share. Long since had Earth withdrawn them from the hearts of men. -Her lesser children knew them no more. But still through the deep -recesses of her further consciousness they thundered and were glad... -though few might hear that thunder, share that awful joy.... - -Even the Irishman--who in ordinary life had felt instinctively that -worship which is close to love, and so to the union that love -brings--even he, in this new-found freedom, only partially discerned -their presences. He felt them now, these stately Powers men once called -the gods, but felt them from a distance; and from a distance, too, they -saw and watched him come. He knew their gorgeous forms half dimmed by -a remote and veiled enchantment; knew that they reared aloft like -ancient towers, ruined by neglect and ignorance, starved and lonely, but -still hauntingly splendid and engaging, still terrifically alive. And it -seemed to him that sometimes their awful eyes flashed with the sunshine -over slope and valley, and that wherever they rested flowers sprang to -life. - -Their nearness sometimes swept him like a storm, and then the entire -herd with which he mingled would stand abruptly still, caught by a wave -of awe and wonder. The host of them stood still upon the grass, their -frolic held a moment, their voices hushed, only deep panting audible -and the soft shuffling of their hoofs among the flowers. They bowed -their splendid heads and waited--while a god went past them.... And -through himself, as witness of the passage, a soft, majestic power also -swept. With the lift of a hurricane, yet with the gentleness of dew, he -felt the noblest in himself irresistibly evoked. It was gone again as -soon as come. It passed. But it left him charged with a regal confidence -and joy. As in the mountains a shower of snow picks out the highest peaks -in white, tracing its course and pattern over the entire range, so in -himself he knew the highest powers--aspirations, yearnings, hopes--raised -into shining, white activity, and by these quickened splendors of -his soul could recognize the nature of the god who came so close. - - * * * * * - -And, keeping mostly to the river-beds, they splashed in the torrents, -played and leaped and cantered. From the openings of many a moist cave -others came to join them. Below a certain level, though, they never went; -the forests knew them not; they loved the open, windy heights. They -turned and circulated as by a common consent, wheeling suddenly together -as if a single desire actuated the entire mass. One instinct spread, as -it were, among the lot, shared instantly, conveying to each at once the -general impulse. Their movements in this were like those of birds whose -flight in coveys obeys the order of a collective consciousness of which -each single one is an item--expressions of one single Bird-Idea behind, -distributed through all. - -And O'Malley without questioning or hesitation obeyed, while yet he was -free to do as he wished alone. To do as they did was the greatest -pleasure, that was all. - -For sometimes with two of them, one fully-formed, the other of lesser -mold--he flew on little journeys of his own. These two seemed nearer -to him than the rest. He felt he knew them and had been with them -before. Their big brown eyes continually sought his own with pleasure. -It almost seemed as if they had all three been separated long away from -one another, and had at last returned. No definite memory of the -interval came back, however; the sea, the steamer, and the journey's -incidents all had faded--part of that world of lesser insignificant dream -where they had happened. But these two kept close to him; they ran and -danced together.... - -The time that passed included many dawns and nights and also many -noons of splendor. It all seemed endless, perfect, and serene. That -anything could finish here did not once occur to him. Complete things -cannot finish. He passed through seas and gulfs of glorious existence. -For the strange thing was that while he only remembered afterwards the -motion, play, and laughter, he yet had these other glimpses here and -there of some ordered and progressive life existing just beyond. It lay -hidden deeper within. He skimmed its surface; but something prevented -his knowing it fully. And the limitation that held him back belonged, -it seemed, to that thin world of trivial dreaming he had left behind. He -had not shaken it off entirely. It still obscured his sight. - -The scale and manner of this greater life faintly reached him, nothing -more. It may be that he only failed to bring back recollection, or it may -be that he did not penetrate deeply enough to know. At any rate, he -recognized that this sudden occasional passing by of vast deific figures -had to do with it, and that all this ocean of Earth's deeper -Consciousness was peopled with forms of life that obeyed some splendid -system of progressive ordered existence. To be gathered up in this one -greater consciousness was not the end.... Rather was it merely the -beginning.... - -Meantime he learned that here, among these lesser thoughts of the great -Mother, all the Pantheons of the world had first their origin--the -Greek, the Eastern, and the Northern too. Here all the gods that men -have ever half divined, still ranged the moods of Her timeless -consciousness. Their train of beauty, too, accompanied them. - - * * * * * - -I cannot half recall the streams of passionate description with which -his words clothed these glowing memories of his vision. Great pictures -of it haunt the background of my mind, pictures that lie in early mists, -framed by the stars and glimmering through some golden, flowered -dawn. Besides the huge outlines that stood breathing in the background -like dark mountains, there flitted here and there strange dreamy forms -of almost impossible beauty, slender as lilies, eyes soft and starry -shining through the dusk, hair flying past them like a rain of summer -flowers. Nymph-like they moved down all the pathways of the Earth's young -mind, singing and radiant, spring blossoms in the Garden of her -Consciousness.... And other forms, more vehement and rude, urged -to and fro across the pictures; crowding the movement; some playful -and protean; some clothed as with trees, or air, or water; and others -dark, remote, and silent, ranging her deeper layers of thought and dream, -known rarely to the outer world at all. - -The rush and glory of it all is more than my mind can deal with. I -gather, though, O'Malley saw no definite forms, but rather knew -"forces," powers, aspects of this Soul of Earth, facets she showed in -long-forgotten days to men. Certainly the very infusoria of his -imagination were kindled and aflame when he spoke of them. Through the -tangled thicket of his ordinary mind there shone this passion of an -uncommon loveliness and splendour. - - - - -XXXVII - -"The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we -really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things, so much -the more is snatched from inevitable time." - ---RICHARD JEFFERIES - - -In the relationship that his everyday mind bore to his present state -there lay, moreover, a wealth of pregnant suggestion. The bridge -connecting his former "civilized" condition with this cosmic experience -was a curious one. That outer, lesser state, it seemed, had known a -foretaste sometimes of the greater. And it was hence had come those -dreams of a Golden Age that used to haunt him. For he began now to -recall the existence of that outer world of men and women, though by -means of certain indefinite channels only. And the things he remembered -were not what the world calls important. They were moments when he had -known--beauty; beauty, however, not of the grandiose sort that holds the -crowd, but of so simple and unadvertised a kind that most men overlook it -altogether. - -He understood now why the thrill had been so wonderful. He saw -clearly why those moments of ecstasy he had often felt in Nature used -to torture him with an inexpressible yearning that was rather pain than -joy. For they were precisely what he now experienced when the viewless -figure of a god passed by him. Down there, out there, below--in that -cabined lesser state--they had been partial, but were now complete. -Those moments of worship he had known in woods, among mountains, -by the shores of desolate seas, even in a London street, perhaps at the -sight of a tree in spring or of a pathway of blue sky between the summer -clouds,--these had been, one and all, tentative, partial revelations of -the Consciousness of the Soul of Earth he now knew face to face. - -These were his only memories of that outer world. Of people, cities, -or of civilization apart from these, he had no single remembrance. - - * * * * * - -Certain of these little partial foretastes now came back to him, like -fragments of dream that trouble the waking day. - -He remembered, for instance, one definite picture: a hot autumn sun -upon a field of stubble where the folded corn-sheaves stood; thistles -waving by the hedges; a yellow field of mustard rising up the slope -against the sky-line, and beyond a row of peering elms that rustled in -the wind. The beauty of the little scene was somehow poignant. He -recalled it vividly. It had flamed about him, transfiguring the world; he -had trembled, yearning to see more, for just behind it he divined with -an exulting passionate worship this gorgeous, splendid Earth-Being with -whom at last he now actually moved. In that instant of a simple -loveliness her consciousness had fringed his own--had bruised it. He -had known it only by the partial channels of sight and smell and -hearing, but had felt the greater thing beyond, without being able to -explain it. And a portion of what he felt had burst in speech from his -lips. - -He was there, he remembered, with two persons, a man and woman -whose name and face, however, he could not summon, and he recalled -that the woman smiled incredulously when he spoke of the exquisite -perfume of those folded corn-sheaves in the air. She told him he -imagined it. He saw again the pretty woman's smile of incomprehension; he -saw the puzzled expression in the eyes of the man; he heard -him murmur something prosaic about the soul, about birds, too, and -the prospects of killing hundreds later--sport! He even saw the woman -picking her way with caution as though the touch of earth could stain -or injure her. He especially recalled the silence that had followed on -his words that sought to show them--Beauty.... He remembered, too, -above all, the sense of loneliness among men that it induced in himself. - -But the memory brought him a curious, sharp pain; and turning to -that couple who were now his playmates in this Garden of the Earth, -he called them with a singing cry and cantered over leagues of flowers, -wind, and sunshine before he stopped again. They leaped and danced -together, exulting in their spacious _Urwelt_ freedom ... want of -comprehension no longer possible. - - * * * * * - -The memory fled away. He shook himself free of it. Then others came in -its place, another and another, not all with people, blind, deaf, and -unreceptive, yet all of "common," simple scenes of beauty when something -vast had surged upon him and broken through the barriers that stand -between the heart and Nature. Such curious little scenes they were. In -most of them he had evidently been alone. But one and all had touched his -soul with a foretaste of this same nameless ecstasy that now he knew -complete. In every one the Consciousness of the Earth had "bruised" his -own. - -Utterly simple they had been, one and all, these partial moments of -blinding beauty in that lesser, outer world:--A big, brown, clumsy bee -he saw, blundering into the petals of a wild flower on which the dew -lay sparkling.... A wisp of colored cloud driving loosely across the -hills, dropping a purple shadow.... Deep, waving grass, plunging and -shaking in the wind that drew out its underworld of blue and silver over -the whole spread surface of a field.... A daisy closed for the night upon -the lawn, eyes tightly shut, hands folded.... A south wind whispering -through larches.... The pattering of summer rain upon young oak -leaves in the dawn.... Fingers of long blue distance upon dreamy -woods.... Anemones shaking their pale and starry little faces in the -wind.... The columned stillness of a pine-wood in the dusk.... Young -birch trees mid the velvet gloom of firs.... The new moon setting in a -cloud of stars.... The hush of stars in many a summer night.... Sheep -grazing idly down a sun-baked hill.... A path of moonlight on a -lake.... A little wind through bare and wintry woods.... Oh! he -recalled the wonder, loveliness, and passion of a thousand more! - -They thronged and passed, and thronged again, crowding one another:--all -golden moments of revelation when he had caught glimpses of the Earth, -and her greater Moods had swept him up into herself. Moments in which a -god had passed.... - -These were his only memories of that outer world he had left behind: -flashes of simple beauty. - -Was thus the thrill of beauty then explained? Was loveliness, as men -know it, a revelation of the Earth-Soul behind? And were the blinding -flash, the dazzling wonder, and the dream men seek to render permanent -in music, color, line and language, a vision of her nakedness? Down -there, the poets and those simple enough of heart to stand close to -Nature, could catch these whispered fragments of the enormous message, -told as in secret; but now, against her very heart he heard the -thunder of the thing complete. Now, in the glory of all naked bodily -forms,--of women, men and children, of swift animals, of flowers, trees, -and running water, of mountains and of seas,--he understood these -partial revelations of the great Earth-Soul that bore them, gave them -life. For one and all were channels for her loveliness. He saw the -beauty of the "natural" instincts, the passion of motherhood and -fatherhood--Earth's seeking to project herself in endless forms and -variety. He understood why love increased the heart and made it feel at -one with all the world. - - * * * * * - -Moreover in some amazing fashion he was aware that others from -that outer world beside himself had access here, and that from this -Garden of the Earth's deep central personality came all the inspiration -known to men. He divined that others were even now drawing upon it -like himself. The thoughts of the poets went past him like thin flames; -the dreams of millions--mute, inexpressible yearnings like those he -had himself once known--streamed by in pale white light, to shoot -forward with a little nesting rush into some great Figure ... and then -return in double volume to the dreaming heart whence first they issued. -Shadows, too, he saw, by myriads--faint, feeble gropings of men and -women seeking it eagerly, yet hardly knowing what they sought; but, -above all, long, singing, beautiful tongues of colored flame that were -the instincts of divining children and of the pure in heart. These came -in rippling floods unerringly to their goal, lingered for long periods -before returning. And all, he knew, were currents of the great Earth -Life, moods, thoughts, dreams--expressions of her various Consciousness -with which she mothered, fed, and blessed all whom it was possible to -reach. Their passionate yearning, their worship, made access possible. -Along the tenderest portions of her personality these latter came, as by -a spread network of infinitely delicate filaments that extended from -herself, deliciously inviting.... - - * * * * * - -The thing, however, that remained with him long after his return -to the normal state of lesser consciousness was the memory of those -blinding moments when a god went past him, or, as he phrased it in -another way, when he caught glimpses of the Earth--naked. For these -were instantaneous flashes of a gleaming whiteness, a dazzling and -supreme loveliness that staggered thought and arrested feeling, while yet -of a radiant simplicity that brought--for a second at least--a measure -of comprehension. - -He then knew not mere partial projections. He saw beyond--deep -down into the flaming center that gave them birth. The blending of his -being with the Cosmic Consciousness was complete enough for this. -He describes it as a spectacle of sheer glory, stupendous, even -terrifying. The refulgent majesty of it utterly possessed him. The shock -of its magnificence came, moreover, upon his entire being, and was not -really of course a "sight" at all. The message came not through any small -division of a single sense. With a massed yet soaring power it shook him -free of all known categories. He then fringed a region of yet greater -being wherein he tasted for a moment some secret comprehension of a true -"divinity." The deliverance into ecstasy was complete. - -In these flashing moments, when a second seemed a thousand years, -he further _understood_ the splendor of the stage beyond. Earth in her -turn was but a Mood in the Consciousness of the Universe, that Universe -again was mothered by another vaster one ... and the total that included -them all was not the gods--but God. - - - - -XXXVIII - - -The litter of disordered notebooks filled to the covers with fragments -of such beauty that they almost seem to burn with a light of their -own, lies at this moment before me on my desk. I still hear the rushing -torrent of his language across the spotted table-cloth in that dark -restaurant corner. But the incoherence seems only to increase with my -best efforts to combine the two. - -"Go home and dream it," as he said at last when I ventured a question -here and there toward the end of the recital. "You'll see it best that -way--in sleep. Get clear away from _me_, and my surface physical -consciousness. Perhaps it will come to you then." - -There remains, however, to record the manner of his exit from that -great Garden of the Earth's fair youth. And he tells it more simply. Or, -perhaps, it is that I understand it better. - -For suddenly, in the midst of all the joy and splendor that he tasted, -there came unbidden a strengthening of the tie that held him to his -"outer," lesser state. A wave of pity and compassion surged in upon him -from the depths. He saw the struggling millions in the prisons and cages -civilization builds. He felt _with_ them. No happiness, he understood, -could be complete that did not also include them all; and--he longed -to tell them. The thought and the desire tore across him burningly. - -"If only I can get this back to them!" passed through him, like a -flame. "I'll save the world by bringing it again to simple things! I've -only got to tell it and all will understand at once--and follow!" - -And with the birth of the desire there ran a deep convulsive sound -like music through the greater Consciousness that held him close. Those -Moods that were the gods, thronged gloriously about him, almost -pressing forwards into actual sight.... He might have lingered where -he was for centuries, or forever; but this thought pulled him back--the -desire to share his knowledge with the world, the passion to heal and -save and rescue. - -And instantly, in the twinkling of an eyelid, the Urwelt closed its gates -of horn and ivory behind him. An immense dark shutter dropped -noiselessly with a speed of lightning across his mind. He stood -without.... - -He found himself near the tumbled-down stone huts of a hamlet that he -recognized. He staggered, rubbed his eyes, and stared. A forest of beech -trees shook below him in a violent wind. He saw the branches tossing. A -Caucasian saddle-horse beside him nosed a sack that spilt its flour on -the ground at his feet, he heard the animal's noisy breathing; he noted -the sliding movement of the spilt flour before it finally settled; and -some fifty yards beyond him, down the slopes, he saw a human -figure--running. - -It was his Georgian guide. The man, half stooping, caught the woolen -bashlik that had fallen from his head. - -O'Malley watched the man complete the gesture. Still running, he -replaced the cap upon his head. - -And coming up to his ears upon the wind were the words of a broken French -sentence that he also recognized. Disjointed by terror, it completed an -interrupted phrase:-- - -"... one of them is close upon us. Hide your eyes! Save yourself!. -They come from the mountains. They are old as the stones ... run...!" - -No other living being was in sight. - - - - -XXXIX - -The extraordinary abruptness of the transition produced no bewilderment, -it seems. Realizing that without Rostom he would be in a position of -helplessness that might be serious, the Irishman put his hands to his -lips and called out with authority to the running figure of his -frightened guide. He shouted to him to stop. - -"There is nothing to fear. Come back! Are you afraid of a gust of wind?" - -And in his face and voice, perhaps too in his manner, was something -he had brought back from the vision, for the man stopped at once in -his headlong course, paused a moment to stare and question, and then, -though still looking over his shoulder and making occasional signs of -his religion, came slowly back to his employer's side again. - -"It has passed," said O'Malley in a voice that seemed to crumble in -his mouth. "It is gone again into the mountains whence it came. We are -safe. With me," he added, not without a secret sense of humor stirring -in him, "you will always be safe. I can protect us both." He felt as -normal as a British officer giving orders to his soldiers. And the -Georgian slowly recovered his composure, yet for a long time keeping -close to the other's side. - -The transition, thus, had been as sudden and complete as anything well -could be. O'Malley described it as the instantaneous dropping of a -shutter across his mind. The entire vision had lasted but a fraction of -a second, and in a fraction of a second, too, he had returned to his -state of everyday lesser consciousness. That blending with the Earth's -great Consciousness was but a flashing glimpse after all. The extension -of personality had been momentary. - -So absolute, moreover, was the return that at first, remembering -nothing, he took up life again exactly where he had left it. The guide -completed the gesture and the sentence which the vision had interrupted, -and O'Malley, similarly, resumed his own thread of thought and action. - -Only a hint remained. That, and a curious sense of interval, alone -were left to witness this flash of an immense vision,--of cosmic -consciousness--that apparently had filled so many days and nights. - -"It was like waking suddenly in the night out of deep sleep," he said; -"not of one's own accord, or gradually, but as when someone shakes -you out of slumber and you are wide awake at once. You have been -dreaming vigorously--thick, lively, crowded dreams, and they all vanish -on the instant. You catch the tail-end of the procession just as it's -diving out of sight. In less than a second all is gone." - -For this was the hint that remained. He caught the flying tail-end of -the vision. He knew he _had_ seen something. But, for the moment, that -was all. - -Then, by degrees and afterwards, the details re-emerged. In the days -that followed, while with Rostom he completed the journey already -planned, the deeper consciousness gave back its memory piece by piece; -and piece by piece he set it down in notebooks as best he could. The -memory was on deposit deep within him, and at intervals he tapped it. -Hence, of course, is due the confused and fragmentary character of those -bewildering entries; hence, at the same time, too, their truth and value. -For here was no imaginative dream concocted in a mood of high invention. -The parts were disjointed, incomplete, just as they came. The lesser -consciousness, it seems, could not contain the thing complete; nor to the -last, I judge, did he ever know complete recapture. - - * * * * * - -They wandered for two weeks and more about the mountains, meeting -various adventure by the way, reported duly in his letters of travel. -But these concerned the outer man and have no proper place in this -strange record ... and by the middle of July he found himself once more -in--civilization. At Michaelevo he said good-bye to Rostom and -took the train. - -And it was with the return to the conditions of modern life that the -reaction set in and stirred the deeper layers of consciousness to -reproduce their store of magic. For this return to what seemed the paltry -activities of an age of machinery, physical luxury, and superficial -contrivances brought him a sense of pain that was acute and trenchant, -more--a deep and poignant sense of loss. The yearnings, no longer -satisfied, began again to reassert themselves. It was not the actual -things the world seemed so busy about that pained him, but rather the -point of view from which the world approached them--those that it deemed -with one consent "important," and those, with rare exceptions, it -obviously deemed worth no consideration at all, and ignored. For himself -these values stood exactly reversed. - -The Vision then came back to him, rose from the depths, blinded his eyes -with maddening beauty, sang in his ears, possessed his heart and mind. He -burned to tell it. The world of tired, restless men, he felt, must -equally burn to hear it. Some vision of a simple life lived close to -Nature came before his inner eye as the remedy for the vast disease of -restless self-seeking of the age, the medicine that should cure the -entire world. A return to Nature was the first step toward the great -Deliverance men sought. And, most of all, he yearned to tell it first to -Heinrich Stahl. - -To hear him talk about it, as he talked perhaps to me alone, was -genuinely pathetic, for here, in Terence O'Malley, I thought to see the -essential futility of all dreamers nakedly revealed. His vision was so -fine, sincere, and noble; his difficulty in imparting it so painful; and -its marriage with practical action so ludicrously impracticable. At any -rate that combination of vision and action, called sometimes genius, -which can shake the world, assuredly was not his. For his was no -constructive mind; he was not "intellectual"; he _saw_, but with the -heart; he could not build. To plan a new Utopia was as impossible to him -as to shape even in words the splendor he had known and lived. Bricks and -straw could only smother him before he laid what most would deem -foundations. - -At first, too, in those days while waiting for the steamer in Batoum, -he kept strangely silent. Even in his own thoughts was silence. He could -not speak of what he knew. Even paper refused it. But all the time this -glorious winged thing, that yet was simple as the sunlight or the rain, -went by his side, while his soul knew the relief of some divine, proud -utterance that, he felt, could never know complete confession in speech -or writing. Later he stammered over it--to his notebooks and to me, -and partially also to Dr. Stahl. But at first it dwelt alone and hidden, -contained in this deep silence. - -The days of waiting he filled with walks about the streets, watching -the world with new eyes. He took the Russian steamer to Poti, and -tramped with a knapsack up the Tchourokh gorge beyond Bourtchka, -regardless of the Turkish gypsies and encampments of wild peoples on -the banks. The sense of personal danger was impossible; he felt the whole -world kin. That sense protected him. Pistol and cartridges lay in his -bag, forgotten at the hotel. - -Delight and pain lay oddly mingled in him. The pain he recognized of -old, but this great radiant happiness was new. The nightmare of modern -cheap-jack life was all explained; unjustified, of course, as he had -always dimly felt, symptom of deep disorder; all due, this feverish, -external business, to an odd misunderstanding with the Earth. Humanity -had somehow quarreled with her, claiming an independence that could not -really last. For her the centuries of this estrangement were but a little -thing perhaps--a moment or two in that huge life which counted a million -years to lay a narrow bed of chalk. They would come back in time. -Meanwhile she ever called. A few, perhaps, already dreamed of return. -Movements, he had heard, were afoot--a tentative endeavor here and there. -They heard, these few, the splendid whisper that, sweetly calling, ever -passed about the world. - -For her voice in the last resort was more potent than all others--an -enchantment that never wholly faded; men had but temporarily left her -mighty sides and gone astray, eating of trees of knowledge that brought -them deceptive illusions of a mad self-intoxication; fallen away into the -pains of separateness and death. Loss of direction and central control -was the result; the Babel of many tongues so clumsily invented, by which -all turned one against another. Insubordinate, artificial centers had -assumed disastrous command. Each struggled for himself against his -neighbors. Even religions fought to the blood. A single sect could damn -the rest of humanity, yet in the same breath sing complaisantly of its -own Heaven. - -Meanwhile She smiled in love and patience, letting them learn their -lesson; meanwhile She watched and waited while, like foolish children, -they toiled and sweated after futile transient things that brought no -single letter of content. She let them coin their millions from her -fairest thoughts, the gold and silver in her veins; and let them turn it -into engines of destruction, knowing that each "life lost," returned into -her arms and heart, crying with the pain of its wayward foolishness, the -lesson learned; She watched their tears and struggling just outside the -open nursery door, knowing they must at length return for food; and -while thus waiting, watching, She heard all prayers that reached her; She -answered them with love and forgiveness ever ready; and to the few who -realized their folly--naughtiness, perhaps, at worst it was--this side of -"death," She brought full measure of peace and joy and beauty. - -Not permanently could they hurt themselves, for evil was but distance -from her side, the ignorance of those who had wandered furthest into -the little dark labyrinth of a separated self. The "intellect" they were -so proud of had misled them. - -And sometimes, here and there across the ages, with a glory that refused -utterly to be denied, She thundered forth her old sweet message of -deliverance. Through poet, priest, or child she called her children -home. The summons rang like magic across the wastes of this dreary -separated existence. Some heard and listened, some turned back, some -wondered and were strangely thrilled; some, thinking it too simple to -be true, were puzzled by the yearning and the tears and went back to -seek for a more difficult way; while most, denying the secret glory in -their hearts, sought to persuade themselves they loved the strife and -hurrying fever best. - -At other times, again, she chose quite different ways, and sent the -amazing message in a flower, a breath of evening air, a shell upon the -shore; though oftenest, perhaps, it hid in a strain of music, a patch of -color on the sea or hills, a rustle of branches in a little twilight -wind, a whisper in the dusk or in the dawn. He remembered his own first -visions of it.... - -Only never could the summons come to her children through the intellect, -for this it was that led them first away. Her message enters ever by the -heart. - -The simple life! He smiled as he thought of the bald Utopias here and -there devised by men, for he had seen a truth whose brilliance smote -his eyes too dazzlingly to permit of the smallest corner of darkness. -Remote, no doubt, in time that day when the lion shall lie down with -the lamb and men shall live together in peace and gentleness; when the -inner life shall be admitted as the Reality, strife, gain, and loss -unknown because possessions undesired, and petty selfhood merged in the -larger life--remote, of course, yet surely not impossible. He had seen -the Face of Nature, heard her Call, tasted her joy and peace; and the -rest of the tired world might do the same. It only waited to be shown the -way. The truth he now saw so dazzling was that all who heard the call -might know it for themselves at once, cuirassed with shining love that -makes the whole world kin, the Earth a mother literally divine. Each soul -might thus provide a channel along which the summons home should pass -across the world. To live with Nature and share her greater -consciousness, _en route_ for states yet greater, nearer to the eternal -home--this was the beginning of the truth, the life, the way. - -He saw "religion" all explained: and those hard sayings that make men -turn away:--the imagined dread of losing life to find it; the counsel -of perfection that the neighbor shall be loved as self; the fancied -injury and outrage that made it hard for rich men to enter the kingdom. -Of these, as of a hundred other sayings, he saw the necessary truth. It -all seemed easy now. The world would see it with him; it must; it could -not help itself. Simplicity as of a little child, and selflessness as of -the mystic--these were the splendid clues. - -Death and the grave, indeed, had lost their victory. For in the stages -of wider consciousness beyond this transient physical phase he saw all -loved ones joined and safe, as separate words upgathered each to each -in the parent sentence that explains them, the sentence in the paragraph, -the paragraph in the whole grand story all achieved--and so at length -into the eternal library of God that consummates the whole. - -He saw the glorious series, timeless and serene, advancing to the climax, -and somehow understood that individuality at each stage was never lost -but rather extended and magnified. Love of the Earth, life close to -Nature, and denial of so-called civilization was the first step upwards. -In the Simple Life, in this return to Nature, lay the opening of the -little path that climbed to the stars and heaven. - - - - -XL - - -At the end of the week the little steamer dropped her anchor in the -harbor and the Irishman booked his passage home. He was standing on the -wharf to watch the unloading when a hand tapped him on the shoulder and -he heard a well-known voice. His heart leaped with pleasure. There were -no preliminaries between these two. - -"I am glad to see you safe. You did not find your friend, then?" - -O'Malley looked at the bronzed face beside him, noted the ragged -tobacco-stained beard, and saw the look of genuine welcome in the -twinkling brown eyes. He watched him lift his cap and mop that familiar -dome of bald head. - -"I'm safe," was all he answered, "because I found him." - -For a moment Dr. Stahl looked puzzled. He dropped the hand he held so -tightly and led him down the wharf. - -"We'll get out of this devilish sun," he said, leading the way among -the tangle of merchandise and bales, "it's enough to boil our brains." -They passed through the crowd of swarthy, dripping Turks, Georgians, -Persians, and Armenians who labored half naked in the heat, and moved -toward the town. A Russian gunboat lay in the Bay, side by side with -freight and passenger vessels. An oil-tank steamer took on cargo. The -scene was drenched in sunshine. The Black Sea gleamed like molten -metal. Beyond, the wooded spurs of the Caucasus climbed through haze -into cloudless blue. - -"It's beautiful," remarked the German, pointing to the distant coastline, -"but hardly with the beauty of those Grecian Isles we passed together. -Eh?" He watched him closely. "You're coming back on our steamer?" he -asked in the same breath. - -"It's beautiful," O'Malley answered ignoring the question, "because -it lives. But there is dust upon its outer loveliness, dust that has -gathered through long ages of neglect, dust that I would sweep away--I've -learnt how to do it. He taught me." - -Stahl did not even look at him, though the words were wild enough. He -walked at his side in silence. Perhaps he partly understood. For this -first link with the outer world of appearances was difficult for him to -pick up. The person of Stahl, thick-coated with the civilization whence -he came, had brought it, and out of the ocean of glorious vision in his -soul, O'Malley took at random the first phrases he could find. - -"Yes, I've booked a passage on your steamer," he added presently, -remembering the question. It did not seem strange to him that his -companion ignored both clues he offered. He knew the man too well -for that. It was only that he waited for more before he spoke. - -They went to the little table outside the hotel pavement where several -weeks ago they had drunk Kakhetian wine together and talked of deeper -things. The German called for a bottle, mineral water, ice, and -cigarettes. And while they sipped the cooling golden liquid, hats off and -coats on the backs of their chairs, Stahl gave him the news of the world -of men and events that had transpired meanwhile. O'Malley listened -vaguely as he smoked. It seemed remote, unreal, almost fantastic, this -long string of ugly, frantic happenings, all symptoms of some disordered -state that was like illness. The scream of politics, the roar and rattle -of flying-machines, financial crashes, furious labor upheavals, rumors of -war, the death of kings and magnates, awful accidents and strange turmoil -in enormous cities. Details of some sad prison life, it almost seemed, -pain and distress and strife the note that bound them all together. Men -were mastered by these things instead of mastering them. These -unimportant things they thought would make them free only imprisoned -them. - -They lunched there at the little table in the shade, and in turn the -Irishman gave an outline of his travels. Stahl had asked for it and -listened attentively. The pictures interested him. - -"You've done your letters for the papers," he questioned him, "and now, -perhaps, you'll write a book as well?" - -"Something may force its way out--come blundering, thundering out in -fragments, yes." - -"You mean you'd rather not--?" - -"I mean it's all too big and overwhelming. He showed me such blinding -splendors. I might tell it, but as to writing--!" He shrugged his -shoulders. - -And this time Dr. Stahl ignored no longer. He took him up. But not with -any expected words or questions. He merely said, "My friend, there's -something that I have to tell you--or, rather, I should say, to show -you." He looked most keenly at him, and in the old familiar way he placed -a hand upon his shoulder. His voice grew soft. "It may upset you; it may -unsettle--prove a shock perhaps. But if you are prepared, we'll go--" - -"What kind of shock?" O'Malley asked, startled a moment by the gravity of -manner. - -"The shock of death," was the answer, gently spoken. - -The Irishman only knew a swift rush of joy and wonder as he heard it. - -"But there is no such thing!" he cried, almost with laughter. "He -taught me that above all else. There is no death!" - -"There is 'going away,' though," came the rejoinder, spoken low; -"there is earth to earth and dust to dust--" - -"That's of the body--!" - -"That's of the body, yes," the older man repeated darkly. - -"There is only 'going home,' escape and freedom. I tell you there's -only that. It's nothing but joy and splendor when you really understand." - -But Dr. Stahl made no immediate answer, nor any comment. He paid -the bill and led him down the street. They took the shady side. Passing -beyond the skirts of the town they walked in silence. The barracks where -the soldiers sang, the railway line to Tiflis and Baku, the dome and -minarets of the church, were left behind in turn, and presently they -reached the hot, straight dusty road that fringed the sea. They heard the -crashing of the little waves and saw the foam creamily white against the -dark grey pebbles of the beach. - -And when they reached a small enclosure where thin trees were -planted among sparse grass all brown and withered by the sun, they -paused, and Stahl pointed to a mound, marked at either end by rough -stone boulder. A date was on it, but no name. O'Malley calculated the -difference between the Russian Calendar and the one he was accustomed -to. Stahl checked him. - -"The fifteenth of June," the German said. - -"The fifteenth of June, yes," said O'Malley very slowly, but with -wonder and excitement in his heart. "That was the day that Rostom -tried to run away--the day I saw him come to me from the trees--the -day we started off together ... to the Garden...." - -He turned to his companion questioningly. For a moment the rush -of memory was quite bewildering. - -"He never left Batoum at all, you see," Stahl continued, without -looking up. "He went straight to the hospital the day we came into port. -I was summoned to him in the night--that last night while you slept -so deeply. His old strange fever was upon him then, and I took him -ashore before the other passengers were astir. I brought him to the -hospital myself. And he never left his bed." He pointed down to the -little nameless grave at their feet where a wandering wind from the sea -just stirred the grasses. "That was the date on which he died." - -"He went away in the early morning," he added in a low voice that -held both sadness and sympathy. - -"He went home," said the Irishman, a tide of joy rising tumultuously -through his heart as he remembered. The secret of that complete and -absolute Leadership was out. He understood it all. It had been a -spiritual adventure to the last. - -Then followed a pause. - -In silence they stood there for some minutes. There grew no flowers on -that grave, but O'Malley stooped down and picked a strand of the withered -grass. He put it carefully between the pages of his notebook; and then, -lying flat against the ground where the sunshine fell in a patch of white -and burning glory, he pressed his lips to the crumbling soil. He kissed -the Earth. Oblivious of Stahl's presence, or at least ignoring it, he -worshipped. - -And while he did so he heard that little sound he loved so well--which -more than any words or music brought peace and joy, because it told his -Passion all complete. With his ears close to the earth he heard it, yet -at the same time heard it everywhere. For it came with the falling of the -waves upon the shore, through the murmur of the rustling branches -overhead, and even across the whispering of the withered grass about him. -Deep down in the center of the mothering Earth he heard it too in faintly -rising pulse. It was the exquisite little piping on a reed--the ancient -fluting of the everlasting Pan.... - -And when he rose he found that Stahl had turned away and was gazing at -the sea, as though he had not noticed. - -"Doctor," he cried, yet so softly it was a whisper rather than a call, "I -heard it then again; it's everywhere! Oh, tell me that you hear it too!" - -Stahl turned and looked at him in silence. There was a moisture in his -eyes, and on his face a look of softness that a woman might have worn. - -"I've brought it back, you see, I've brought it back. For that's the -message--that's the sound and music I must give to all the world. No -words, no book can tell it." His hat was off, his eyes were shining, his -voice broke with the passion of joy he yearned to share yet knew so -little how to impart. "If I can pipe upon the flutes of Pan the millions -all will listen, will understand, and--follow. Tell me, oh, tell me, that -_you_ heard it too!" - -"My friend, my dear young friend," the German murmured in a voice of real -tenderness, "you heard it truly--but you heard it in your heart. Few hear -the Pipes of Pan as you do. Few care to listen. Today the world is full -of other sounds that drown it. And even of those who hear," he shrugged -his shoulders as he led him away toward the sea,--"how few will care to -follow--how fewer still will _dare._" - -And while they lay upon the beach and watched the line of foam against -their feet and saw the seagulls curving idly in the blue and shining air, -he added underneath his breath--O'Malley hardly caught the murmur of his -words so low he murmured them:-- - -"The simple life is lost forever. It lies asleep in the Golden Age, and -only those who sleep and dream can ever find it. If you would keep your -joy, dream on, my friend! Dream on, but dream alone!" - - - - -XLI - - -Summer blazed everywhere and the sea lay like a blue pool of melted sky -and sunshine. The summits of the Caucasus soon faded to the east and -north, and to the south the wooded hills of the Black Sea coast -accompanied the ship in a line of wavy blue that joined the water and -the sky indistinguishably. - -The first-class passengers were few; O'Malley hardly noticed their -existence even. An American engineer, building a railway in Turkey, -came on board at Trebizond; there were one or two light women on their -way home from Baku, and the attache of a foreign embassy from Teheran. -But the Irishman felt more in touch with the hundred peasant-folk -who joined the ship at Ineboli from the interior of Asia Minor -and were bound as third-class emigrants for Marseilles and far America. -Dark-skinned, wild-eyed, ragged, very dirty, they had never seen the sea -before, and the sight of a porpoise held them spellbound. They lived -on the after-deck, mostly cooking their own food, the women and children -sleeping beneath a large tarpaulin that the sailors stretched for -them across the width of deck. At night they played their pipes and -danced, singing, shouting, and waving their arms--always the same -tune over and over again. - -O'Malley watched them for hours together. He also watched the engineer, -the over-dressed women, the attache. He understood the difference -between them as he had never understood it before. He understood the -difficulty of his task as well. How in the world could he ever explain a -single syllable of his message to these latter, or waken in them the -faintest echo of desire to know and listen. The peasants, though all -unconscious of the blinding glory at their elbows, stood far nearer to -the truth. - -"Been further east, I suppose?" the engineer observed, one afternoon -as the steamer lay off Broussa, taking on a little extra cargo of walnut -logs. He looked admiringly at the Irishman's bronzed skin. "Take a -better sun than this to put that on!" - -He laughed in his breezy, vigorous way, and the other laughed with -him. Previous conversations had already paved the way to a traveler's -friendship, and the American had taken to him. - -"Up in the mountains," he replied, "camping out and sleeping in the -sun did it." - -"The Caucasus! Ah, I'd like to get up there myself a bit. I'm told -they're a wonderful thing in the mountain line." - -Scenery for him was evidently a commercial commodity, or it was nothing. -It was the most up-to-date nation in the world that spoke--in the van of -civilization--representing the last word in progress due to triumph over -Nature. - -O'Malley said he had never seen anything like them. He described the -trees, the flowers, the tribes, the scenery in general; he dwelt upon -the vast uncultivated spaces, the amazing fruitfulness of the soil, the -gorgeous beauty above all. "I'd like to get the overcrowded cities of -England and Europe spread all over it," he said with enthusiasm. "There -is room for thousands there to lead a simple life close to Nature, in -health and peace and happiness. Even your tired millionaires could -escape their restless, feverish worries, lay down their weary burden of -possessions, and enjoy the earth at last. The poor would cease to be with -us; life become true and beautiful again--" He let it pour out of him, -building the scaffolding of his dream before him in the air and filling -it in with beauty. - -The American listened in patience, watching the walnut logs being -towed through the water to the side of the ship. From time to time he -spat on them, or into the sea. He let the beauty go completely past him. - -"Great idea, that!" he interrupted at length. "You're interested, I see, -in socialism and communistic schemes. There's money in them somewhere -right enough, if a man only could hit the right note at the first -go off. Take a bit of doing, though!" - -One of the women from Baku came up and leaned upon the rails a little -beyond them. The sickly odor of artificial scent wafted down. The -attache strolled along the deck and ogled her. - -"Get a few of that sort to draw the millionaires in, eh?" he added -vulgarly. - -"Even those would come, yes," said the Irishman softly, realizing for -the first time within his memory that his gorge did not rise, "for they -too would change, grow clean and sweet and beautiful." - -The engineer looked sharply into his face, uncertain whether he had -not missed a clever witticism of his own kind. But O'Malley did not -meet his glance. His eyes were far away upon the snowy summit of -Olympus where a flock of fleecy clouds hung hovering like the hair of -the eternal gods. - -"They say there's timber going to waste that you could get to the coast -merely for the cost of drawing it--Caucasian walnut, too, to burn," the -other continued, getting on to safer ground, "and labor's dirt cheap. -There's every sort of mineral too God ever made. You could build light -railways and run the show by electricity. And water-power for the asking. -You'd have to get a Concession from Russia first though," he added, -spitting down upon a huge floating log in the clear sea underneath, -"and Russia's got palms that want a lot of greasing. I guess the natives, -too, would take a bit of managing." - -The woman beyond had shifted several feet nearer, and after a pause -the Irishman found no words to fill, his companion turned to address -a remark to her. O'Malley took the opening and moved away. - -"Here's my card, anyway," the American added, handing him an -over-printed bit of large pasteboard from a fat pocket-book that bore -his name and address in silver on the outside. "If you develop the scheme -and want a bit of money, count me in." - -He went to the other side of the vessel and watched the peasants on -the lower deck. Their dirt seemed nothing by comparison. It was only -on their clothes and bodies. The odor of this unwashed humanity was -almost sweet and wholesome. It cleansed the sickly taint of that other -scent from his palate; it washed his mind of thoughts as well. - -He stood there long in dreaming silence, while the sunlight on Olympus -turned from gold to rose, and the sea took on the colors of the fading -sky. He watched a dark Kurd baby sliding down the tarpaulin. A kitten was -playing with a loose end of rope too heavy for it to move. Further off a -huge fellow with bared chest and the hands of a colossus sat on a pile of -canvas playing softly on his wooden pipes. The dark hair fell across his -eyes, and a group of women listened idly while they busied themselves -with the cooking of the evening meal. Immediately beneath him a -splendid-eyed young woman crammed a baby to her naked breast. The kitten -left the rope and played with the tassel of her scarlet shawl. - -And as he heard those pipes and watched the grave, untamed, strong faces -of those wild peasant men and women, he understood that, low though they -might be in scale of evolution, there was yet absent from them the touch -of that deteriorating _something_ which civilization painted into those -other countenances. But whether the word he sought was degradation or -whether it was shame, he could not tell. In all they did, the way they -moved, their dignity and independence, there was this something, he felt, -that bordered on being impressive. Their wants were few, their worldly -possessions in a bundle, yet they had this thing that set them in a place -apart, if not above, these others:--beyond that simpering attache for all -his worldly diplomacy, that engineer with brains and skill, those painted -women with their clever playing upon the feelings and desires of their -kind. There _was_ this difference that set the ragged dirty crew in a -proud and quiet atmosphere that made them seem almost distinguished by -comparison, and certainly more desirable. Rough and untutored though they -doubtless were, they still possessed unspoiled that deeper and more -elemental nature that bound them closer to the Earth. It needed training, -guidance, purifying; yes; but, in the last resort, was it not of greater -spiritual significance and value than the mode of comparatively -recently-developed reason by which Civilization had produced these other -types? - -He watched them long. The sun sank out of sight, the sea turned -dark, ten thousand stars shone softly in the sky, and while the steamer -swung about and made for peaked Andros and the coast of Greece, he -still stood on in reverie and wonder. The wings of his great Dream -stirred mightily ... and he saw pale millions of men and women trooping -through the gates of horn and ivory into that Garden where they should -find peace and happiness in clean simplicity close to the Earth.... - - - - -XLII - - -There followed four days then of sea, Greece left behind, Messina and the -Lipari Islands past; and the blue outline of Sardinia and Corsica began -to keep pace with them as they neared the narrow straits of Bonifacio -between them. The passengers came up to watch the rocky desolate shores -slip by so close, and Captain Burgenfelder was on the bridge. - -Grey-headed rocks rose everywhere close about the ship; overhead the -seagulls cried and circled; no vegetation was visible on either shore, no -houses, no abode of man--nothing but the lighthouses, then miles of -deserted rock dressed in those splendors of the sun's good-night. The -dinner-gong had sounded but the sight was too magnificent to leave, -for the setting sun floated on an emblazoned sea and stared straight -against them in level glory down the narrow passage. Unimaginable -colors painted sky and wave. The ruddy cliffs of bleak loneliness rose -from a bed of flame. Soft airs fanned the cheeks with welcome coolness -after the fierce heat of the day. There was a scent of wild honey in the -air borne from the purple uplands far, far away. - -"I wonder, oh, I wonder, if they realized that a god is passing -close...!" the Irishman murmured with a rising of the heart, "and that -here is a great mood of the Earth-Consciousness inviting them to peace! -Or do they merely see a yellow sun that dips beneath a violet sea...?" - -The washing of the water past the steamer's sides caught away the rest -of the half-whispered words. He remembered that host of many thousand -heads that bowed in silence while a god swept by.... It was almost -a shock to hear a voice replying close beside him:-- - -"Come to my cabin when you're ready. My windows open to the west. -We can be alone together. We can have there what food we need. You -would prefer it perhaps?" - -He felt the touch of that sympathetic hand upon his shoulder, and -bent his head to signify agreement. - -For a moment, face to face with that superb sunset, he had known a deep -and utter peace in the vast bosom of this greater soul about him. Her -consciousness again had bruised and fringed his own. Across that -delicately divided threshold the beauty and the power of the gods had -poured in a flood into his being. And only there was peace, only there -was joy, only there was the death of those ancient yearnings that -tortured his little personal and separate existence. The return to the -world was aching pain again. The old loneliness that seemed more than he -could bear swept icily through him, contracting life and freezing every -spring of joy. For in that single instant of return he felt pass into him -a loneliness of the whole travailing world, the loneliness of countless -centuries, the loneliness of all the races of the Earth who were exiled -and had lost the way. - -Too deep it lay for words or tears or sighs. The doctor's invitation -came most opportunely. And presently in silence he turned his back -upon that opal sky of dream from which the sun had gone, and walked -slowly down the deck toward Stahl's cabin. - -"If only I can share it with them," he thought as he went; "if only -men will listen, if only they will come. To keep it all to myself, to -dream alone, will kill me." - -And as he stood before the door it seemed he heard wild rushing -through the sky, the tramping of a thousand hoofs, a roaring of the -wind, the joy of that free, torrential passage with the Earth. He turned -the handle and entered the cozy room where weeks before they held the -inquest on the little empty tenement of flesh, remembering how that -other figure had once stood where he now stood--part of the sunrise, -part of the sea, part of the morning winds. - - * * * * * - -They had their meal almost in silence, while the glow of sunset filled -the cabin through the western row of port-holes, and when it was over -Stahl made the coffee as of old and lit the familiar black cigar. -Slowly O'Malley's pain and restlessness gave way before the other's -soothing quiet. He had never known him before so calm and gentle, so -sympathetic, almost tender. The usual sarcasm seemed veiled in sadness; -there was no irony in the voice, nor mockery in the eyes. - -Then to the Irishman it came suddenly that all these days while he -had been lost in dreaming the doctor had kept him as of old under close -observation. The completeness of his reverie had concealed from him this -steady scrutiny. He had been oblivious to the fact that Stahl had all the -time been watching, investigating, keenly examining. Abruptly he now -realized it. - -And then Stahl spoke. His tone was winning, his manner frank and -inviting. But it was the sadness about him that won O'Malley's confidence -so wholly. - -"I can guess," he said, "something of the dream you've brought with -you from those mountains. I can understand--more, perhaps, than you -imagine, and I can sympathize--more than you think possible. Tell me -about it fully--if you can. I see your heart is very full, and in the -telling you will find relief. I am not hostile, as you sometimes feel. -Tell me, my dear, young clear-eyed friend. Tell me your vision and your -hope. Perhaps I might even help ... for there may be things that I could -also tell to you in return." - -Something in the choice of words, none of which offended; in the -atmosphere and setting, no detail of which jarred; and in the degree of -balance between utterance and silence his world of inner forces just then -knew, combined to make the invitation irresistible. Moreover, he had -wanted to tell it all these days. Stahl was already half convinced. Stahl -would surely understand and help him. It was the psychological moment -for confession. The two men rose in the same moment, Stahl to -lock the cabin doors against interruption, O'Malley to set their chairs -more closely side by side so that talking should be easiest. - -And then without demur or hesitation he opened his heart to this -other and let the floodgates of his soul swing wide. He told the vision -and he told the dream; he told his hope as well. And the story of his -passion, filled in with pages from those notebooks he ever carried in -his pocket, still lasted when the western glow had faded from the sky -and the thick-sown stars shone down upon the gliding steamer. The -hush of night lay soft upon the world before he finished. - -He told the thing complete, much, I imagine, as he told it all to me upon -the roof of that apartment building and in the dingy Soho restaurant. He -told it without reservations--his life-long yearnings: the explanation -brought by the presence of the silent stranger upon the outward voyage: -the journey to the Garden: the vision that all life--from gods to -flowers, from men to mountains--lay contained in the conscious Being of -the Earth, that Beauty was but glimpses of her essential nakedness; and -that salvation of the world's disease of modern life was to be found in a -general return to the simplicity of Nature close against her mothering -heart. He told it all--in words that his passionate joy chose -faultlessly. - -And Heinrich Stahl in silence listened. He asked no single question. -He made no movement in his chair. His black cigar went out before -the half of it was smoked. The darkness hid his face impenetrably. - -And no one came to interrupt. The murmur of the speeding steamer, -and occasional footsteps on the deck as passengers passed to and fro in -the cool of the night, were the only sounds that broke the music of that -incurable idealist's impassioned story. - - - - -XLIII - - -And then at length there came a change of voice across the cabin. The -Irishman had finished. He sank back in the deep leather chair, exhausted -physically, but with the exultation of his mighty hope still pouring at -full strength through his heart. For he had ventured further than ever -before and had spoken of a possible crusade--a crusade that should preach -peace and happiness to every living creature. - -And Dr. Stahl, in a voice that showed how deeply he was moved, asked -quietly:-- - -"By leading the nations back to Nature you think they shall advance -to Truth at last?" - -"With time," was the reply. "The first step lies there:--in changing -the direction of the world's activities, changing it from the transient -Outer to the eternal Inner. In the simple life, external possessions -unnecessary and recognized as vain, the soul would turn within and -seek Reality. Only a tiny section of humanity has time to do it now. -There is no leisure. Civilization means acquirement for the body: it -ought to mean development for the soul. Once sweep aside the trash -and rubbish men seek outside themselves today, and the wings of their -smothered souls would stir again. Consciousness would expand. Nature -would draw them first. They would come to feel the Earth as I did. Self -would disappear, and with it this false sense of separateness. The -greater consciousness would waken in them. The peace and joy and -blessedness of inner growth would fill their lives. But, first, this -childish battling to the death for external things must cease, and -Civilization stand revealed for the bleak and empty desolate thing it -really is. It leads away from God and from the things that are eternal." - -The German made no answer; O'Malley ceased to speak; a long silence -fell between them. Then, presently, Stahl relighted his cigar, and -lapsing into his native tongue--always a sign with him of deepest -seriousness--he began to talk. - -"You've honored me," he said, "with a great confidence; and I am deeply, -deeply grateful. You have told your inmost dream--the thing men find it -hardest of all to speak about." He felt in the darkness for his -companion's hand and held it tightly for a moment. He made no other -comment upon what he had heard. "And in return--in some small way of -return," he continued, "I may ask you to listen to something of my own, -something of possible interest. No one has ever known it from my lips. -Only, in our earlier conversations on the outward voyage, I hinted at it -once or twice. I sometimes warned you--" - -"I remember. You said he'd 'get' me, 'win' me over--'appropriation' was -the word you used." - -"I suggested caution, yes; urged you not to let yourself go too -completely; told you he represented danger to yourself, and to humanity -as it is organized today--" - -"And all the rest," put in O'Malley a shade impatiently. "I remember -perfectly." - -"Because I knew what I was talking about." The doctor's voice came across -the darkness somewhat ominously. And then he added in a louder tone, -evidently sitting forward as he said it: "For the thing that has happened -to yourself as I foresaw it would, had already _almost_ happened to me -too!" - -"To you, doctor, too?" exclaimed the Irishman in the moment's pause -that followed. - -"I saved myself just in time--by getting rid of the cause." - -"You discharged him from the hospital, because you were afraid!" He said -it sharply as though are instant of the old resentment had flashed up. - -By way of answer Stahl rose from his chair and abruptly turned up the -electric lamp upon the desk that faced them across the cabin. Evidently -he preferred the light. O'Malley saw that his face was white and very -grave. He grasped for the first time that the man was speaking -professionally. The truth came driving next behind it--that Stahl -regarded him as a patient. - - * * * * * - -"Please go on, doctor," he said, keenly on the watch. "I'm deeply -interested." The wings of his great dream still bore him too far aloft -for him to feel more than the merest passing annoyance at his discovery. -Resentment had gone too. Sadness and disappointment for an instant -touched him perhaps, but momentarily. In the end he felt sure that -Stahl would stand at his side, completely won over and convinced. - -"You had a similar experience to my own, you say," he urged him. "I -am all eagerness and sympathy to hear." - -"We'll talk in the open air," the doctor answered, and ringing the bell -for the steward to clear away, he drew his companion out to the deserted -decks. They moved toward the bows, past the sleeping peasants. The stars -were mirrored in a glassy sea and toward the north the hills of Corsica -stood faintly outlined in the sky. It was already long after midnight. - -"Yes, a similar thing nearly happened to me," he resumed as they settled -themselves against a coil of rope where only the murmur of the washing -sea could reach them, "and might have happened to others too. Inmates of -that big _Krankenhaus_ were variously affected. My action, tardy I must -admit, saved myself and them." - -And the German then told his story as a man might tell of his escape from -some grave disaster. In the emphatic sentences of his native language he -told it, congratulating himself all through. The Russian had almost won -him over, gained possession of his heart and mind, persuaded him, but in -the end had failed--because the other ran away. It was like hearing a man -describe an attempt to draw him into Heaven, then boast of his escape. -His caution and his judgment, as he put it, saved him, but to the -listening Celt it rather seemed that his compromise it was that damned -him. The Kingdom of Heaven is hard to enter, for Stahl had possessions -not of the wood and metal order, but possessions of the brain and reason -he was too proud to forego completely. They kept him out. - -With increasing sadness, too, he heard it; for here he realized was the -mental attitude of an educated, highly civilized man today--a -representative type regarded by the world as highest. It was this he had -to face. Moreover Stahl was more than merely educated, he was -understandingly sympathetic, meeting the great dream halfway; seeing in -it possibilities; admitting its high beauty, and even sometimes speaking -of it with hope and a touch of enthusiasm. Its originator none the less -he regarded as a reactionary dreamer, an unsettling and disordered -influence, a patient, if not even something worse! - -Stahl's voice and manner were singular while he told it all, revealing -one moment the critical mind that analyzed and judged, and the next -an enthusiasm almost of the mystic. Alternately, like the man and -woman of those quaint old weather-glasses, each peered out and showed -a face, the reins of compromise yet ever seeking to hold them well in -leash and drive them together. - -Hardly, it seems, had the strange Russian been under his care a week -before he passed beneath the sway of his curious personality and -experienced the attack of singular emotions upon his heart and mind. - -He described at first the man's arrival, telling it with the calm and -balanced phrases a doctor uses when speaking merely of a patient who -had stirred his interest. He first detailed the method of suggestion he -had used to revive the lapsed memory--and its utter failure. Then he -passed on to speak of him more generally: but briefly and condensed. - -"The man," he said, "was so engaging, so docile, his personality -altogether so attractive and mysterious, that I took the case myself -instead of delegating it to my assistants. All efforts to trace his past -collapsed. It was as if he had drifted into that little hotel out of the -night of time. Of madness there was no evidence whatever. The association -of ideas in his mind, though limited, was logical and rigid. His health -was perfect, barring strange, sudden fever; his vitality tremendous; -yet he ate most sparingly and the only food he touched was fruit and -milk and vegetables. Meat made him sick, the huge frame shuddered -when he saw it. And from all the human beings in the place with whom -he came in contact he shrank with a kind of puzzled dismay. With animals, -most oddly it seemed, he sought companionship; he would run to the window -if a dog barked, or to hear a horse's hoofs; a Persian cat belonging to -one of the nurses never left his side, and I have seen the trees in the -yard outside his window thick with birds, and even found them in the room -and on the sill, flitting about his very person, unafraid and singing. - -"With me, as with the attendants, his speech was almost nil--laconic -words in various languages, clipped phrases that sometimes combined -Russian, French, or German, other tongues as well. - -"But, strangest of all, with animal life he seemed to hold this kind -of communication that was Intelligible both to himself and them. Animals -certainly were 'aware' of him. It was not speech. It ran in a deep, -continuous murmur like a droning, humming sound of wind. I took the hint -thus faintly offered. I gave him his freedom in the yards and gardens. -The open air and intercourse with natural life was what he craved. The -sadness and the air of puzzled fretting then left his face, his eyes grew -bright, his whole presentment happier; he ran and laughed and even sang. -The fever that had troubled him all vanished. Often myself I took the -place of nurse or orderly to watch him, for the man's presence more than -interested me: it gave me a renewed sense of life that was exhilarating, -invigorating, delightful. And in his appearance, meanwhile, something -that was not size or physical measurement, turned--tremendous. - -"A part of me that was not mind--a sort of forgotten instinct blindly -groping--came of its own accord to regard him as some loose fragment -of a natural, cosmic life that had somehow blundered down into a -human organism it sought to use.... - -"And then it was for the first time I recognized the spell he had cast -upon me; for, when the Committee decided there was no reason to keep -him longer, I urged that he should stay. Making a special plea, I took -him as a private patient of my own. I kept him under closer personal -observation than ever before. I needed him. Something deep within me, -something undivined hitherto, called out into life by his presence, could -not do without him. This new craving, breakingly wild and sweet, awoke -in my blood and cried for him. His presence nourished it in me. Most -insidiously it attacked me. It stirred deep down among the roots of my -being. It 'threatened my personality' seems the best way I can put it; -for, turning a critical analysis upon it, I discovered that it was an -undermining and revolutionary change going steadily forward in my -character. Its growth had hitherto been secret. When I first recognized -its presence, the thing was already strong. For a long time, it had been -building. - -"And the change in a word--you will grasp my meaning from the shortest -description of essentials--was this: that ambition left me, ordinary -desire crumbled, the outer world men value so began to fade." - -"And in their place?" cried O'Malley breathlessly, interrupting for -the first time. - -"Came a rushing, passionate desire to escape from cities and live for -beauty and simplicity 'in the wilderness'; to taste the life _he_ -seemed to know; to go out blindly with him into woods and desolate -places, and be mixed and blended with the loveliness of Earth and Nature. -This was the first thing I knew. It was like an expansion of my normal -world--almost an extension of consciousness. It somehow threatened my -sense of personal identity. And--it made me hesitate." - -O'Malley caught the tremor in his voice. Even in the telling of it the -passion plucked at him, for here, as ever, he stood on the border-line of -compromise, his heart tempting him toward salvation, his brain and -reason tugging at the brakes. - -"The sham and emptiness or modern life, its drab vulgarity, the -unworthiness of its very ideals stood appallingly revealed before some -inner eye just opening. I felt shaken to the core of what had seemed -hitherto my very solid and estimable self. How the man thus so powerfully -affected me lies beyond all intelligible explanation. To use the obvious -catchword 'hypnotism' is to use a toy and stop a leak with paper. For his -influence was _unconsciously_ exerted. He cast no net of clever, -persuasive words about my thought. Out of that deep, strange silence of -the man it somehow came. His actions and his simple happiness of face and -manner--both in some sense the raw material of speech perhaps--may have -operated as potently suggestive agents; but no adequate causes to justify -the result, apart from the fantastic theories I have mentioned, have ever -yet come within the range of my understanding. I can only give you the -undeniable effects." - -"Your sense of extended consciousness," asked his listener, "was this -continuous, once it had begun?" - -"It came in patches," Stahl continued. "My normal, everyday self was -thus able to check it. While it derided, commiserated this everyday self, -the latter stood in dread of it and even awe. My training, you see, -regarded it as symptom of disorder, a beginning of unbalance that might -end in insanity, the thin wedge of a dissociation of the personality -Morton Prince and others have described." - -His speech grew more and more jerky, even incoherent; evidently the -material had not even now been fully reduced to order in his mind. - -"Among other curious symptoms I soon established that this subtle -spreading of my consciousness grew upon me especially during sleep. -The business of the day distracted, scattered it. On waking in the -morning, as with the physical fatigue that comes toward the closing of -the day, it was strongest. - -"And so, in order to examine it closely when in fullest manifestation, -I came to spend the nights with him. I would creep in while he slept -and stay till morning, alternately sleeping and waking myself. I watched -the two of us together. I also watched the 'two' in me. And thus it was -I made the further strange discovery that the influence _he_ exerted on -me was strongest while he slept. It is best described by saying that in -his sleep I was conscious that he sought to draw me with him--away -somewhere into his own wonderful world--the state or region, that is, -where he manifested completely instead of partially as I knew him here. -His personality was a channel somewhere out into a living, conscious -Nature...." - -"Only," interrupted O'Malley, "you felt that to yield and go involved -some nameless inner catastrophe, and so resisted?" He chose his phrase -with purpose. - -"Because I discovered," was the pregnant answer, given steadily while -he watched his listener closely through the darkness, "that this desire -for escape the man had wakened in me was nothing more or less than the -desire to leave the world, to leave the conditions that prevented--in -fact to leave the body. My discontent with modern life had gone as far -as that. It was the birth of the suicidal mania." - - * * * * * - -The pause that followed the words, on the part of Dr. Stahl at any -rate, was intentional. O'Malley held his peace. The men shifted their -places oil the coil of rope, for both were cramped and stiff with the -lengthy session. For a minute or two they leaned over the bulwarks and -watched the phosphorescent foam in silence. The blue mountainous shores -slipped past in shadowy line against the stars. But when they sat down -again their relative positions were not what they had been before. Dr. -Stahl had placed himself between his listener and the sea. And O'Malley -did not let the manoeuvre escape him. Smiling to himself he noticed it. -Just as surely he noticed, too, that the whole recital was being told him -with a purpose. - -"You really need not be afraid," he could not resist saying. "The idea -of escape _that_ way has never even come to me at all. And, anyhow, I've -far too much on hand first in telling the world my message." He laughed -in the silence that took his words, for Stahl said nothing and made as -though he had not heard. But the Irishman understood that it was in -the spirit of feeble compromise that danger lay--if danger there was at -all, and he himself was far beyond such weakness. His eye was single -and his body full of light, and the faith that plays with mountains had -made him whole. Return to Nature for him involved no denial of human -life, nor depreciation of human interests, but only a revolutionary -shifting of values. - -"And it was one night while he slept and I watched him in the little -room," resumed the German as though there had been no interruption, -"I noticed first so decisively this growing of a singular size about him -I have already mentioned, and grasped its meaning. For the bulk of the -man while growing--emerging, rather, I should say--assumed another -shape than his own. It was not my eyes that saw it. I saw him as _he felt -himself to be_. The creature's personality, his essential inner being, -was acting directly upon my own. His influence was at me from another -point or angle. First the emotions, then the senses you see. It was a -finely organized attack. - -"I definitely understood at last that my mind was affected--and proved it -too, for the instant effort I made at recovery resulted in my seeing him -normal again. The size and shape retreated the moment I denied them." - -O'Malley noticed how the speaker's voice lingered over the phrase. -Again he knew the intention of the pause that followed. He held his -peace, however, and waited. - -"Nor was sight the only sense affected," Stahl continued, "for smell -and hearing also brought their testimony. Through all but touch, -indeed, the hallucination attacked me. For sometimes at night while I -sat up watching in the little room, there rose outside the open window -in the yards and gardens a sound of tramping, a distant roaring as of -voices in a rising wind, a rushing, hollow murmur, confused and deep -like that of forests, or the swift passage of a host of big birds across -the sky. I heard it, both in the air and on the ground--this tramping on -the lawns, this curious shaking of the atmosphere. And with it at the -same time a sharp and mingled perfume that made me think of earth -and leaves, of flowers after rain, of plains and open spaces, most -singular of all--of animals and horses. - -"Before the firm denial of my mind, they vanished, just as the change -of form had vanished. But both left me weaker than they found me, -more tender to attack. Moreover, I understood most plainly, that they -emanated all from him. These 'emanations' came, too, chiefly, as I -mentioned, whilst he slept. In sleep, it seemed, he set them free. The -slumber of the body disengaged them. And then the instinct came to -warn me--presenting itself with the authority of an unanswerable -intuition--the realization, namely, that if, for a single moment in his -presence, I slept, the changes would leap forward in my own being, and -I should join him." - -"Escape! Know freedom in a larger consciousness!" cried the other. - -"And for a man of my point of view and training to have permitted -such a conviction at all," he went on, the interruption utterly ignored -again, "proves how far along the road I had already traveled without -knowing it. Only at the time I was not aware of this. It was the shock -of full discovery later that brought me to my senses, when, seeking to -withdraw,--I found I could not." - -"And so you ran away." It came out bluntly enough, with a touch of -scorn but ill concealed. - -"We discharged him. But before that came there was more I have to -tell you--if you still care to hear it." - -"I'm not tired, if that's what you mean. I could listen all night, as far -as that goes." - -He rose to stretch his legs a moment, and Stahl rose too--instantly. -Together they leaned over the bulwarks. The German's hat was off and -the air made by the steamer's passage drew his beard out. The warm soft -wind brought odors of sea and shore. It caressed their faces, then passed -on across those sleeping peasants on the lower deck. The masts and -rigging swung steadily against the host of stars. - -"Before I thus knew myself half caught," continued the doctor, standing -now close enough beside him for actual contact, "and found it difficult -to get away, other things had happened, things that confirmed the change -so singularly begun in me. They happened everywhere; confirmation came -from many quarters; though slight enough, they filled in all the gaps and -crevices, strengthened the joints, and built the huge illusion round me -all complete until it held me like a prison. - -"And they are difficult to tell. Only, indeed, to yourself who underwent -a similar experience up there in the mountains, could they bring much -meaning. You had the same temptation and you--weathered the same storm." -He caught O'Malley's arm a moment and held it. "You escaped this madness -just as I did, and you will realize what I mean when I say that the -sensation of losing my sense of personal identity became so dangerously, -so seductively strong. The feeling of extended consciousness became -delicious--too delicious to resist. A kind of pagan joy and exultation -known to some in early youth, but put away with the things of youth, -possessed me. In the presence of this other's soul, so strangely powerful -in its silence and simplicity, I felt as though I touched new sources of -life. I tapped them. They poured down and flooded me--with dreams--dreams -that could really haunt--with unsettling thoughts of glory and delight -_beyond the body_. I got clean away into Nature. I felt as though some -portion of me just awakening reached out across him into rain and -sunshine, far up into the sweet and starry sky--as a tree growing out of -a thicket that chokes its lower part finds light and freedom at the top." - -"It caught you badly, doctor," O'Malley murmured. "The gods came close!" - -"So badly that I loathed the prisoned darkness that held me so thickly -in the body. I longed to know my being all dispersed through Nature, -scattered with dew and wind, shining with the star-light and the sun. -And the manner of escape I hinted to you a little while ago came to -seem right and necessary. Lawful it seemed, and obvious. The mania -literally obsessed me, though still I tried to hide it even from myself -... and struggled in resistance." - -"You spoke just now of other things that came to confirm it," the -Irishman said while the other paused to take breath. All this he knew. -He grew weary of Stahl's clever laboring the point that it was madness. -A little knowledge is ever dangerous, and he saw so clearly why the -hesitation of the merely intellectual man had led him into error. "Did -you mean that others acknowledged this influence as well as yourself?" - -"You shall read that for yourself tomorrow," came the answer, "in the -detailed report I drew up afterwards; it is far too long to tell you now. -But, I may mention something of it. That breaking out of patients was -a curious thing, their trying to escape, their dreams and singing, their -efforts sometimes to approach his room, their longing for the open and -the gardens; the deep, prolonged entrancing of a few; the sounds of -rushing, tramping that they, too, heard, the violence of some, the silent -ecstasy of others. The thing may find its parallel, perhaps, in the -collective mania that sometimes afflicts religious communities, in -monasteries or convents. Only here there was no preacher and eloquent -leader to induce hysteria--nothing but that silent dynamo of power, -gentle and winning as a little child, a being who could not put a phrase -together, exerting his potent spell unconsciously, and chiefly while he -slept. - -"For the phenomena almost without exception came in the night, and often -at their fullest strength, as afterwards reported to me, while I dozed in -his room and watched beside his motionless and slumbering form. Oh, and -there was more as well, much more, as you shall read. The stories my -assistants brought me, the tales of frightened nurse and warder, the -amazing yarns the porter stammered out, of strangers who had rung the -bell at dawn, trying to push past him through the door, saying they were -messengers and had been summoned, sent for, had to come,--large, curious, -windy figures, or, as he sometimes called them with unconscious humor, -'like creatures out of fairy books or circuses' that always vanished as -suddenly as they came. Making every allowance for excitement and -exaggeration, the tales were strange enough, I can assure you, and the -way many of the patients knew their visions intensified, their illusions -doubly strengthened, their efforts even to destroy themselves in many -cases almost more than the staff could deal with--all this brought the -matter to a climax and made my duty very plain at last." - -"And the effect upon yourself--at its worst?" asked his listener quietly. - -Stahl sighed wearily a little as he answered with a new-found sadness -in his tone. - -"I've told you briefly that," he said; "repetition cannot strengthen it. -The worthlessness of the majority of human aims today expresses it -Best--what you have called yourself the 'horror of civilization.' The -vanity of all life's modern, so-called up-to-date tendencies for outer, -mechanical developments. A wild, mad beauty streaming from that man's -personality overran the whole place and caught the lot of us, myself -especially, with a lust for simple, natural things, and with a passion -for spiritual beauty to accompany them. Fame, wealth, position seemed the -shadows then, and something else it's hard to name announced itself as -the substance.... I wanted to clear out and live with Nature, to know -simplicity, unselfish purposes, a golden state of childlike existence -close to dawns and dew and running water, cared for by woods and blessed -by all the winds...." He paused again for breath, then added:-- - -"And that's just where the mania caught at me so cunningly--till I -saw it and called a halt." - -"Ah!" - -"For the thing I sought, the thing _he_ knew, and perhaps remembered, -was not possible _in the body_. It was a spiritual state--" - -"Or to be known subjectively!" O'Malley checked him. - -"I am no lotus-eater by nature," he went on with energy, "and so I -fought and conquered it. But first, I tell you, it came upon me like a -tempest--a hurricane of wonder and delight. I've always held, like -yourself perhaps, that civilization brings its own army of diseases, and -that the few illnesses known to ruder savage races can be cured by simple -means the earth herself supplies. And along this line of thought the -thing swept into me--the line of my own head-learning. This was natural -enough; natural enough, too, that it thus at first deceived me. - -"For the quack cures of history come to this--herb simples and the -rest; only we know them now as sun-cure, water-cure, open-air cure, old -Kneipp, sea-water, and a hundred others. Doctors have never swarmed -before as they do now, and these artificial diseases civilization brings -in such quantity seemed all at once to mean the abeyance of some central -life or power men ought to share with--Nature.... You shall read it -all in my written report. I merely wish to show you now how the -insidious thing got at me along the line of my special knowledge. I saw -the truth that priests and doctors are the only possible and necessary -'professions' in the world, and--that they should be really but a single -profession...." - - - - -XLIV - - -He drew suddenly back with a kind of jerk. It was as though he realized -abruptly that he had said too much--had overdone it. He took his -companion by the arm and led him down the decks. - -As they passed the bridge the Captain called out a word of welcome -to them; and his jolly, boisterous laugh ran down the wind. The -American engineer came from behind a dark corner, almost running -into them; his face was flushed. "It's like a furnace below," he said in -his nasal familiar manner; "too hot to sleep. I've run up for a gulp of -air." He made as though he would join them. - -"The wind's behind us, yes," replied the doctor in a different tone, -"and there's no draught." With a gesture, half bow, half dismissal, he -made even this thick-skinned member of "the greatest civilization on -earth" understand he was not wanted. And they turned at the cabin door, -O'Malley a moment wondering at the admirable dignity with which the -"little" man had managed the polite dismissal. - -Himself, perhaps, he would not have minded the diversion. He was a little -weary of the German's long recital. The confession had not been complete, -he felt. Much had been held back. It was not altogether straightforward. -The dishonesty which hides in compromise peeped through it everywhere. - -And the incoherence of the latter part had almost bored him. For it -was, he easily divined, a studied incoherence. It was meant to touch a -similar weakness in himself--if there. But it was _not_ there. He saw -through the whole manoeuvre. Stahl wished to warn and save him by -showing that the experience they had partly shared was nothing but a -strange mental disorder. He wished to force in this subtle way his own -interpretation of it upon his friend. Yet at the same time the intuitive -Irishman discerned that other tendency in the man which would so -gladly perhaps have welcomed a different explanation, and even in some -fashion did actually accept it. - -O'Malley smiled inwardly as he watched him prepare the coffee as of -old. And patiently he waited for the rest that was to come. In a certain -sense it all was useful. It would be helpful later. This was an attitude -he would often have to face when he returned to civilized life and tried -to tell his Message to the thinking, educated men of today--the men he -must win over somehow to his dream--the men, without whose backing, no -Movement could hope to meet with even a measure of success. - -"So, like myself," said Stahl, as he carefully tended the flame of the -spirit-lamp between them, "you have escaped by the skin of your teeth, -as it were. And I congratulate you--heartily." - -"I thank you," said the other dryly. - -"You write your version now, and I'll write mine--indeed it is already -almost finished--then we'll compare notes. Perhaps we might even -publish them together." - -He poured out the fragrant coffee. They faced each other across the -little table. But O'Malley did not take the bait. He wished to hear the -balance his companion still might tell. - -And presently he asked for it. - -"With the discharge of your patient the trouble ceased at once, then?" - -"Comparatively soon. It gradually subsided, yes." - -"And as regards yourself?" - -"I came back to my senses. I recovered my control. The insubordinate -impulses I had known retired." He smiled as he sipped his coffee. "You -see me now," he added, looking his companion steadily in the eyes, "a -sane and commonplace ship's doctor." - -"I congratulate you--" - -"_Vielen Dank._" He bowed. - -"On what you missed, yet almost accomplished," the other finished. -"You might have known, like me, the cosmic consciousness! You might -have met the gods!" - -"In a strait-waistcoat," the doctor added with a snap. - -They laughed at one another across their coffee cups as once before -they had laughed across their glasses of Kakhetian wine--two eternally -antagonistic types that will exist as long as life itself. - -But, contrary to his expectations, the German had little more to tell. -He mentioned how the experience had led his mind into strange and -novel reading in his desire to know what other minds might have to -offer by way of explanation, even the most fanciful and far-fetched. He -told, though very briefly, how he had picked up Fechner among others, -and carefully studied his "poetic theories," and read besides the best -accounts of "spiritistic" phenomena, as also of the rarer states of -hysteria, double-consciousness, multiple personality, and even those -looser theories which suggest that a portion of the human constitution -called "astral" or "etheric" may escape from the parent center and, -carrying with it the subtler forces of desire and yearning, construct a -vivid subjective state of mind which is practically its Heaven of hope -and longing all fulfilled. - -He did not, however, betray the results upon himself of all this curious -reading and study, nor mention what he found of truth or probability in -it all. He merely quoted books and authors, in at least three languages, -that stretched in a singular and catholic array from Plato and the -Neo-Platonists across the ages to Myers, Du Prel, Flournoy, Lodge, and -Morton Prince. - -Out of the lot, perhaps,--O'Malley gathered it by inference rather -than from actual statement, from fragments of their talks upon the -outward voyage more than from anything let fall just then--Fechner -had proved the most persuasive to this man's contradictory and original -mind. It certainly seemed, at least, as if he knew some secret -sympathetic leaning toward the idea that consciousness and matter were -inseparable, and that a Cosmic Consciousness "of sorts" might pertain to -the Earth as, equally, to all the other stars and planets. The _Urwelt_ -idea he so often referred to had seized a part of his imagination--that, -at least, was clear. - -The Irishman drank it all in, but he was too exhausted now to argue, -and too full besides to ask questions. His natural volubility forsook -him. He let the doctor have his say without interruptions. He took the -warnings with the rest of it. Nothing the other said had changed him. - -It was not the first sunrise they had watched together, and as they -took the morning air on deck once more, Corsica rising like a dream -the night had left behind her on the sea, he listened with fainter -interest to the German's concluding sentences. - -"At any rate you now understand why on that other voyage I was so -eager to watch you with your friend, so keen to separate you, to prevent -your sleeping with him, and at the same time so desirous to see his -influence upon you at close quarters; and also--why I always understood -so well what was going on both outwardly and within." - -O'Malley quietly reiterated the belief he still held in the power of his -own dream. - -"I shall go home and give my message to the world," was what he said -quietly. "I think it's true." - -"It's better to keep silent," was the answer, "for, even if true, the -world is not ready yet to listen. It will evaporate, you'll find, in the -telling. You'll find there's nothing to tell. Besides, a dream like yours -must dawn on all at once, and not on merely one. No one will understand -you." - -"I can but try." - -"You will reach no men of action; and few of intellect. You will merely -stuff the dreamers who are already stuffed enough. What is the use, I -ask you? What is the use?" - -"It will set the world on fire for simplicity," the other murmured, -knowing the great sweet passion flame within him as he watched the -sun come slowly out of the rosy sea. "All the use in the world." - -"None," was the laconic answer. - -"They might know the gods!" cried O'Malley, using the phrase that -symbolized for him the entire Vision. - -Stahl looked at him for some time before he spoke. Again that -expression of wistful, almost longing admiration shone in the brown -eyes. - -"My friend," he answered gravely, "men do not want to know the gods. They -prefer their delights less subtle. They crave the cruder physical -sensations that bang them toward excitement--" - -"Of disease, of pain, of separateness," put in the other. - -The German shrugged his shoulders. "It's the stage they're at," he -said. "You, if you have success, will merely make a few uncomfortable. -The majority will hardly turn their heads. To one in a million you may -bring peace and happiness." - -"It's worth it," cried the Irishman, "even for that one!" - -Stahl answered very gently, smiling with his new expression of tenderness -and sympathy. "Dream your great dream if you will, but dream it, my -friend, alone--in peace and silence. That 'one' I speak of is yourself." - -The doctor pressed his hand and turned toward his cabin. O'Malley -stood a little longer to share the sunrise. Neither spoke another word. -He heard the door shut softly behind him. The unspoken answer in his -mind was in two words--two common little adjectives: "Coward and -selfish!" - -But Stahl, once in the privacy of his cabin, judging by the glance -visible on his face ere he closed the door, may probably have known a -very different thought. And possibly he uttered it below his breath. A -sigh most certainly escaped his lips, a sigh half sadness, half relief. -For O'Malley remembered it afterwards. - -"Beautiful, foolish dreamer among men! But, thank God, harmless--to -others and--himself." - -And soon afterwards O'Malley also went to his cabin. Before sleep took -him he lay deep in a mood of sadness--almost as though he had heard his -friend's unspoken thought. He realized the insuperable difficulties -that lay before him. The world would think him "mad but harmless." - -Then, with full sleep, he slipped across that sunrise and found the -old-world Garden. He held the eternal password. - -"I can but try...!" - - - - -XLV - - -And here the crowded, muddled notebooks come to an end. The rest was -action--and inevitable disaster. - -The brief history of O'Malley's mad campaign may be imagined. To a writer -who found interest in the study of forlorn hopes and their leaders, a -detailed record of this particular one might seem worth while. For me -personally it is too sad and too pathetic. I cannot bring myself to tell, -much less to analyze the story of a broken heart, when that heart and -story are those of a close and deeply admired intimate, a man who gave me -genuine love and held my own. - -Besides, although a curious chapter in uncommon human nature, it -is not by any means a new one. It is the true story of many a poet and -dreamer since the world began, though perhaps not often told nor even -guessed. And only the poets themselves, especially the little poets who -cannot utter half the fire that consumes them, may know the searing -pain and passion and the true inwardness of it all. - -Most of those months it chanced I was away, and only fragments of -the foolish enterprise could reach me. But nothing, I think, could have -stopped him, nor any worldly selfish wisdom made him even pause. -The thing possessed him utterly; it had to flame its way out as best it -could. To high and low, he preached by every means in his power the -Simple Life; he preached the mystical life as well--that the true -knowledge and the true progress are within, that they both pertain to -the inner being and have no chief concern with external things. He -preached it wildly, lopsidedly, in or out of season, knowing no half -measures. His enthusiasm obscured his sense of proportion and the -extravagance hid the germ of truth that undeniably lay in his message. - -To put the movement on its feet at first he realized every possession -that he had. It left him penniless, if he was not almost so already, and -in the end it left him smothered beneath the glory of his blinding and -unutterable Dream. He never understood that suggestion is more effective -than a sledge-hammer. His faith was no mere little seed of mustard, -but a full-fledged forest singing its message in a wind of thunder. He -shouted it aloud to the world. - -I think the acid disappointment that lies beneath that trite old phrase -"a broken heart" was never really his; for indeed it seemed that his -cruel, ludicrous failure merely served to strengthen hope and purpose by -making him seek for a better method of imparting what he had to say. -In the end he learned the bitter lesson to the full. But faith never -trailed a single feather. Those jeering audiences in the Park; those -empty benches in many a public hall, those brief, ignoring paragraphs in -the few newspapers that filled a vacant corner by labeling him crank and -long-haired prophet; even the silence that greeted his pamphlets, his -letters to the Press, and all the rest, hurt him for others rather than -for himself. His pain was altruistic, never personal. His dream and -motive, his huge, unwieldy compassion, his genuine love for humanity, all -were big enough for that. - -And so, I think, he missed the personal mortification that disappointment -so deep might bring to dreamers with an aim less unadulteratedly -pure. His eye was single to the end. He attributed only the highest -motives to all who offered help. The very quacks and fools who flocked -to his banner, eager to exploit their smaller fads by joining them to his -own, he welcomed, only regretting that, as Stahl had warned him, he -could not attract a better class of mind. He did not even see through -the manoeuvres of the occasional women of wealth and title who sought -to conceal their own mediocrity by advertising in their drawing-rooms -the eccentricities of men like himself. And to the end he had the courage -of his glorious convictions. - -The change of method that he learned at last, moreover, was -characteristic of this faith and courage. - -"I've begun at the wrong end," he said; "I shall never reach men through -their intellects. Their brains today are occupied by the machine-made -gods of civilization. I cannot change the direction of their thoughts and -lusts from outside; the momentum is too great to stop that way. I must -get at them from within. To reach their hearts, the new ideas must rise -up _from within_. I see the truer way. I must do it _from the other -side_. It must come to them--in Beauty." - -For he was to the last convinced that death would merge him in the -being of the Earth's Collective Consciousness, and that, lost in her deep -eternal beauty, he thus might reach the hearts of men in some stray -glimpse of nature's loveliness, and register his flaming message. He -loved to quote from Adonais: - -"He is made one with Nature: there is heard -His voice in all her music, from the moan -Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; -He is a presence to be felt and known -In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, -Spreading itself where'er that Power may move -Which has withdrawn his being to its own. -He is a portion of the loveliness -Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear -His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress -Sweeps through the dull dense world..." - -And this thought, phrased in a dozen different ways, was always on his -lips. To dream was right and useful, even to dream alone, because the -beauty of the dream must add to the beauty of the Whole of which it is a -part and an interpretation. It was not really lost or vain. All must come -back in time to feed the world. He had known gracious thoughts of Earth -too big to utter, almost too big to hold. Such thoughts could not ever be -really told; they were incommunicable. For the mystical revelation is -incommunicable. It has authority only for him who feels it. A corporate -revelation is impossible. Only those among men could know, in whose -hearts it rose intuitively and made its presence felt as innate ideas. -Inspiration brings it, and beauty is the vehicle. Their hearts must -change before their minds could be reached. - -"I can work it better from the other side--from that old, old Garden -which is the Mother's heart. In this way I can help at any rate...!" - - - - -XLVI - - -It was at the close of a wet and foggy autumn that we met again, winter -in the air, all London desolate; and his wasted, forlorn appearance told -me the truth at once. Only the passionate eagerness of voice and manner -were there to prove that the spirit had not weakened. There glowed within -a fire that showed itself in the translucent shining of the eyes and -face. - -"I've made one great discovery, old man," he exclaimed with old, -familiar, high enthusiasm, "one great discovery at least." - -"You've made so many," I answered cheerfully, while my real thoughts were -busy with his bodily state of health. For his appearance shocked me. He -stood among a litter of papers, books, neckties, nailed boots, knapsacks, -maps and what-not, that rolled upon the floor from the mouth of the -Willesden canvas sack. His old grey flannel suit hung literally upon a -bag of bones; all the life there was seemed concentrated in his face and -eyes--those far-seeing, light blue eyes. They were darker than usual now, -eyes like the sea, I thought. His hair, long and disordered, -tumbled over his forehead. He was pale, and at the same time flushed. It -was almost a disembodied spirit that I saw. - -"You've made so many. I love to hear them. Is this one finer than the -others?" - -He looked a moment at me through and through, almost uncannily. He looked -in reality beyond me. It was something else he saw, and in the dusk I -turned involuntarily. - -"Simpler," he said quickly, "much simpler." - -He moved up close beside me, whispering. Was it all imagination that a -breath of flowers came with him? There was certainly a curious fragrance -in the air, wild and sweet like orchards in the spring. - -"And it is--?" - -"That the Garden's _everywhere!_ You needn't go to the distant Caucasus -to find it. It's all about this old London town, and in these foggy -streets and dingy pavements. It's even in this cramped, undusted room. -Now at this moment, while that lamp flickers and the thousands go to -sleep. The gates of horn and ivory are here," he tapped his breast. "And -here the flowers, the long, clean open hills, the giant herd, the nymphs, -the sunshine and the gods!" - -So attached was he now to that little room in Paddington where his books -and papers lay, that when the curious illness that had caught him grew so -much worse, and the attacks of the nameless fever that afflicted him -turned serious, I hired a bedroom for him in the same house. And it was -in that poky, cage-like den he breathed his last. - -His illness I called curious, his fever nameless, because they really -were so and puzzled every one. He simply faded out of life, it seemed; -there was no pain, no sleeplessness, no suffering of any physical kind. -He uttered no complaint, nor were there symptoms of any known -disorder. - -"Your friend is sound organically," the doctor told me when I pressed him -for the truth there on the stairs, "sound as a bell. He wants the open -air and plenty of wholesome food, that's all. His body is ill-nourished. -His trouble is mental--some deep and heavy disappointment doubtless. If -you can change the current of his thoughts, awaken interest in common -things, and give him change of scene, perhaps--" He shrugged his -shoulders and looked very grave. - -"You think he's dying?" - -"I think, yes, he is dying." - -"From--?" - -"From lack of living pure and simple," was the answer. "He has lost -all hold on life." - -"He has abundant vitality still." - -"Full of it. But it all goes--elsewhere. The physical organism gets -none of it." - -"Yet mentally," I asked, "there's nothing actually wrong?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense. The mind is clear and active. So far as I -can test it, the process of thought is healthy and undamaged. It seems -to me--" - -He hesitated a moment on the doorstep while the driver wound the -motor handle. I waited with a sinking heart for the rest of the sentence. - -"...like certain cases of nostalgia I have known--very rare and very -difficult to deal with. Acute and vehement nostalgia, yes, sometimes -called a broken heart," he added, pausing another instant at the carriage -door, "in which the entire stream of a man's inner life flows to some -distant place, or person, or--or to some imagined yearning that he -craves to satisfy." - -"To a dream?" - -"It _might_ be even that," he answered slowly, stepping in. "It might be -spiritual. The religious and poetic temperament are most open to it, -_and_ the most difficult to deal with when afflicted." He emphasized the -little word as though the doubt he felt was far less strong than the -conviction he only half concealed. "If you would save him, try to change -the direction of his thoughts. There is nothing--in all honesty I must -say it--nothing that I can do to help." - -And then, pulling at the grey tuft on his chin and looking keenly at me a -moment over his glasses,--"Those flowers," he said hesitatingly, "you -might move those flowers from the room, perhaps. Their perfume is a -trifle strong ... It might be better." Again he looked sharply at me. -There was an odd expression in his eyes. And in my heart there was an -odd sensation too, so odd that I found myself bereft a moment of any -speech at all, and when my tongue became untied, the carriage was -already disappearing down the street. For in that dingy sick-room there -were no flowers at all, yet the perfume of woods and fields and open -spaces had reached the doctor too, and obviously perplexed him. - -"Change the direction of his thoughts!" I went indoors, wondering -how any honest and even half-unselfish friend, knowing what I knew, -could follow such advice. With what but the lowest motive, of keeping -him alive for my own happiness, could I seek to change his thoughts -of some imagined joy and peace to the pain and sordid facts of an -earthly existence that he loathed? - -But when I turned I saw the tousled yellow-headed landlady standing -in the breach. Mrs. Heath stopped me in the hall to inquire whether I -could say "anythink abart the rent per'aps?" Her manner was defiant. I -found three months were owing. - -"It's no good arsking 'im," she said, though not unkindly on the -whole. "I'm sick an' tired of always being put off. He talks about the -gawds and a Mr. Pan, or some such gentleman who he says will look -after it all. But I never sees 'im--not this Mr. Pan. And his stuff up -there," jerking her head toward the little room, "ain't worth a -Sankey-moody 'ymn-book, take the lot of it at cost!" - -I reassured her. It was impossible to help smiling. For some minds, -I reflected, a Sankey hymn-book might hold dreams that were every bit -as potent as his own, and far less troublesome. But that "Mr. Pan, or -some such gentleman" should serve as a "reference" between lodger and -landlady was an unwitting comment on the modern point of view that -made me want to cry rather than to laugh. O'Malley and Mrs. Heath -between them had made a profounder criticism than they knew. - - * * * * * - -And so by slow degrees he went, leaving the outer fury for the inner -peace. The center of consciousness gradually shifted from the transient -form which is the true ghost, to the deeper, permanent state which is -the eternal reality. For this was how he phrased it to me in one of our -last, strange talks. He watched his own withdrawal. - -In bed he would lie for hours with fixed and happy eyes, staring -apparently at nothing, the expression on his face quite radiant. The -pulse sank often dangerously low; he scarcely seemed to breathe; yet it -was never complete unconsciousness or trance. My voice, when I found the -heart to try and coax his own for speech, would win him back. The eyes -would then grow dimmer, losing their happier light, as he turned to the -outer world to look at me. - -"The pull is so tremendous now," he whispered; "I was far, so far -away, in the deep life of Earth. Why do you bring me back to all these -little pains? I can do nothing here; _there_ I am of use..." - -He spoke so low I had to bend my head to catch the words. It was -very late at night and for hours I had been watching by his side. Outside -an ugly yellow fog oppressed the town, but about him like an atmosphere -I caught again that fragrance as of trees and flowers. It was too -faint for any name--that fugitive, mild perfume one meets upon bare -hills and round the skirts of forests. It was somehow, I fancied, in the -very breath. - -"Each time the effort to return is greater. In there I am complete and -full of power. I can work and send my message back so splendidly. Here," -he glanced down at his wasted body with a curious smile, "I am only -on the fringe--it's pain and failure. All so ineffective." - -That other look came back into the eyes, more swiftly than before. - -"I thought you might like to speak, to tell me--something," I said, -keeping the tears with difficulty from my voice. "Is there no one you -would like to see?" - -He shook his head slowly, and gave the peculiar answer: - -"They're all in there." - -"But Stahl, perhaps--if I could get him here?" - -An expression of gentle disapproval crossed his face, then melted -softly into a wistful tenderness as of a child. - -"He's not there--yet," he whispered, "but he will come too in the -end. In sleep, I think, he goes there even now." - -"Where are you _really_ then?" I ventured, "And where is it you go to?" - -The answer came unhesitatingly; there was no doubt or searching. - -"Into myself, my real and deeper self, and so beyond it into her--the -Earth. Where all the others are--all, all, all." - -And then he frightened me by sitting up in bed abruptly. His eyes -stared past me--out beyond the close confining walls. The movement -was so startling with its suddenness and vigor that I shrank back a -moment. The head was sideways. He was intently listening. - -"Hark!" he whispered. "They are calling me! Do you hear...?" - -The look of joy that broke over the face like sunshine made me hold -my breath. Something in his low voice thrilled me beyond all I have -ever known. I listened too. Only the rumble of the traffic down the -distant main street broke the silence, the rattle of a nearer cart, and -the footsteps of a few pedestrians. No other noises came across the -night. There was no wind. Thick yellow fog muffled everything. - -"I hear nothing," I answered softly. "What is it that _you_ hear?" - -And, making no reply, he presently lay down again among the pillows, that -look of joy and glory still upon his face. It lay there to the end like -sunrise. - -The fog came in so thickly through the window that I rose to close -it. He never closed that window, and I hoped he would not notice. For -a sound of wretched street-music was coming nearer--some beggar playing -dismally upon a penny whistle--and I feared it would disturb him. But in -a flash he was up again. - -"No, no!" he cried, raising his voice for the first time that night. "Do -not shut it. I shan't be able to hear then. Let all the air come in. Open -it wider... wider! I love that sound!" - -"The fog--" - -"There is no fog. It's only sun and flowers and music. Let them in. -Don't you hear it now?" he added. And, more to bring him peace than -anything else, I bowed my head to signify agreement. For the last -confusion of the mind, I saw, was upon him, and he made the outer -world confirm some imagined detail of his inner dream. I drew the sash -down lower, covering his body closely with the blankets. He flung them -off impatiently at once. The damp and freezing night rushed in upon -us like a presence. It made me shudder, but O'Malley only raised himself -upon one elbow to taste it better, and--to listen. - -Then, waiting patiently for the return of the quiet, trance-like state -when I might cover him again, I moved toward the window and looked -out. The street was empty, save for that beggar playing vilely on his -penny whistle. The wretch came to a standstill immediately before the -house. The lamplight fell from the room upon his tattered, broken -figure. I could not see his face. He groped and felt his way. - -Outside that homeless wanderer played his penny pipe in the night -of cold and darkness. - -Inside the Dreamer listened, dreaming of his gods and garden, his -great Earth Mother, his visioned life of peace and simple things with a -living Nature... - -And I felt somehow that player watched us. I made an angry sign to -him to go. But it was the sudden touch upon my arm that made me -turn round with such a sudden start that I almost cried aloud. O'Malley -in his night-clothes stood close against me on the floor, slight as a -spirit, eyes a-shine, lips moving faintly into speech through the most -wonderful smile a human face has ever shown me. - -"Do not send him away," he whispered, joy breaking from him like -a light, "but tell him that I love it. Go out and thank him. Tell him I -hear and understand, and say that I am coming. Will you...?" - -Something within me whirled. It seemed that I was lifted from my -feet a moment. Some tide of power rushed from his person to my own. -The room was filled with blinding light. But in my heart there rose a -great emotion that combined tears and joy and laughter all at once. - -"The moment you are back in bed," I heard my voice like one speaking from -a distance, "I'll go--" - -The momentary, wild confusion passed as suddenly as it came. I -remember he obeyed at once. As I bent down to tuck the clothes about -him, that fragrance as of flowers and open spaces rose about my bending -face like incense--bewilderingly sweet. - -And the next second I was standing in the street. The man who played -upon the pipe, I saw, was blind. His hand and fingers were curiously -large. - -I was already close, ready to press all that my pockets held into his -hand--ay, and far more than merely pockets held because O'Malley -said he loved the music--when something made me turn my head away. -I cannot say precisely what it was, for first it seemed a tapping at the -window of his room behind me, and then a little noise within the room -itself, and next--more curious than either,--a feeling that something -came out rushing past me through the air. It whirled and shouted as it -went... - -I only remember clearly that in the very act of turning, and while my -look still held that beggar's face within the field of vision, I saw the -sightless eyes turn bright a moment as though he opened them and saw. -He did most certainly smile; to that I swear. - -But when I turned again the street immediately about me was empty. -The beggar-man was gone. - -And down the pavement, moving swiftly through the curtain of fog, -I saw his vanishing figure. It was large and spreading. In the fringe of -light the lamp-post gave, its upper edges seemed far above the ground. -Someone else was with him. There were two figures. - -I heard that sound of piping far away. It sounded faint and almost -flute-like in the air. And in the mud at my feet the money lay--spurned -utterly. I heard the last coins ring upon the pavement as they settled. -But in the room, when I got back, the body of Terence O'Malley had -ceased to breathe. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Centaur, by Algernon Blackwood - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - -This file should be named 7cntr10.txt or 7cntr10.zip -Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7cntr11.txt -VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7cntr10a.txt - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - -Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US -unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the -header without written permission. - -Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the -eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is -important information about your specific rights and restrictions in -how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a -donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** - - -Title: The Centaur - -Author: Algernon Blackwood - -Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9964] -[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] -[This file was first posted on November 5, 2003] - -Edition: 10 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - - - - - - THE CENTAUR - - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - - 1911 - - - - -I - -"We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing -the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the -meaning of it all." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - -"... A man's vision is the great fact about him. Who cares for Carlyle's -reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's? A philosophy is the expression -of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the Universe are -but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters upon it." - ---Ibid - - -"There are certain persons who, independently of sex or comeliness, -arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The tribe is small, -but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither fortune, good -looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the stupid name good -luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality which proclaims that -they have overtaken Fate, set a harness about its neck of violence, and -hold bit and bridle in steady hands. - -"Most of us, arrested a moment by their presence to snatch the definition -their peculiarity exacts, are aware that on the heels of curiosity -follows--envy. They know the very things that we forever seek in vain. -And this diagnosis, achieved as it were _en passant_, comes near to the -truth, for the hallmark of such persons is that they have found, and -come into, their own. There is a sign upon the face and in the eyes. -Having somehow discovered the 'piece' that makes them free of the whole -amazing puzzle, they know where they belong and, therefore, whither they -are bound: more, they are definitely _en route_. The littlenesses of -existence that plague the majority pass them by. - -"For this reason, if for no other," continued O'Malley, "I count my -experience with that man as memorable beyond ordinary. 'If for no other,' -because from the very beginning there was another. Indeed, it was -probably his air of unusual bigness, massiveness rather,--head, face, -eyes, shoulders, especially back and shoulders,--that struck me first -when I caught sight of him lounging there hugely upon my steamer deck at -Marseilles, winning my instant attention before he turned and the -expression on his great face woke more--woke curiosity, interest, envy. -He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge of mild -surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less than -perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child--almost of an -animal--shone in the large brown eyes--" - -"You mean that the physical quality caught you first, then the -psychical?" I asked, keeping him to the point, for his Irish imagination -was ever apt to race away at a tangent. - -He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. "I believe that to be -the truth," he replied, his face instantly grave again. "It was the -impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition--blessed if I know -how--leading me to the other. The size of his body did not smother, as so -often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed. At the moment I -could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only this overwhelming -attraction of the man's personality caught me and I longed to make -friends. That's the way with me, as you know," he added, tossing the hair -back from his forehead impatiently,"--pretty often. First impressions. -Old man, I tell you, it was like a possession." - -"I believe you," I said. For Terence O'Malley all his life had never -understood half measures. - - - - -II - -"The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for -civilization, or is he past it, and mastering it?" - ---WHITMAN - -"We find ourselves today in the midst of a somewhat peculiar state of -society, which we call Civilization, but which even to the most -optimistic among us does not seem altogether desirable. Some of us, -indeed, are inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which the -various races of man have to pass through.... - -"While History tells us of many nations that have been attacked by it, of -many that have succumbed to it, and of some that are still in the throes -of it, we know of no single case in which a nation has fairly recovered -from and passed through it to a more normal and healthy condition. In -other words, the development of human society has never yet (that we know -of) passed beyond a certain definite and apparently final stage in the -process we call Civilization; at that stage it has always succumbed or -been arrested." - ---EDWARD CARPENTER, _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_ - - -O'Malley himself is an individuality that invites consideration from the -ruck of commonplace men. Of mingled Irish, Scotch, and English blood, the -first predominated, and the Celtic element in him was strong. A man of -vigorous health, careless of gain, a wanderer, and by his own choice -something of an outcast, he led to the end the existence of a rolling -stone. He lived from hand to mouth, never quite growing up. It seemed, -indeed, that he never could grow up in the accepted sense of the term, -for his motto was the reverse of _nil admirari_, and he found himself in -a state of perpetual astonishment at the mystery of things. He was -forever deciphering the huge horoscope of Life, yet getting no further -than the House of Wonder, on whose cusp surely he had been born. -Civilization, he loved to say, had blinded the eyes of men, filling them -with dust instead of vision. - -An ardent lover of wild outdoor life, he knew at times a high, passionate -searching for things of the spirit, when the outer world fell away like -dross and he seemed to pass into a state resembling ecstasy. Never in -cities or among his fellow men, struggling and herded, did these times -come to him, but when he was abroad with the winds and stars in desolate -places. Then, sometimes, he would be rapt away, caught up to see the -tail-end of the great procession of the gods that had come near. He -surprised Eternity in a running Moment. - -For the moods of Nature flamed through him--_in_ him--like presences, -potently evocative as the presences of persons, and with meanings equally -various: the woods with love and tenderness; the sea with reverence and -magic; plains and wide horizons with the melancholy peace and silence as -of wise and old companions; and mountains with a splendid terror due to -some want of comprehension in himself, caused probably by a spiritual -remoteness from their mood. - -The Cosmos, in a word, for him was psychical, and Nature's moods were -transcendental cosmic activities that induced in him these singular -states of exaltation and expansion. She pushed wide the gateways of his -deeper life. She entered, took possession, dipped his smaller self into -her own enormous and enveloping personality. - -He possessed a full experience, and at times a keen judgment, of modern -life; while underneath, all the time, lay the moving sea of curiously -wild primitive instincts. An insatiable longing for the wilderness was in -his blood, a craving vehement, unappeasable. Yet for something far -greater than the wilderness alone--the wilderness was merely a symbol, a -first step, indication of a way of escape. The hurry and invention of -modern life were to him a fever and a torment. He loathed the million -tricks of civilization. At the same time, being a man of some -discrimination at least, he rarely let himself go completely. Of these -wilder, simpler instincts he was afraid. They might flood all else. If he -yielded entirely, something he dreaded, without being able to define, -would happen; the structure of his being would suffer a nameless -violence, so that he would have to break with the world. These cravings -stood for that loot of the soul which he must deny himself. Complete -surrender would involve somehow a disintegration, a dissociation of -his personality that carried with it the loss of personal identity. - -When the feeling of revolt became sometimes so urgent in him that it -threatened to become unmanageable, he would go out into solitude, calling -it to heel; but this attempt to restore order, while easing his nature, -was never radical; the accumulation merely increased on the rebound; the -yearnings grew and multiplied, and the point of saturation was often -dangerously near. "Some day," his friends would say, "there'll be a -bursting of the dam." And, though their meaning might be variously -interpreted, they spoke the truth. O'Malley knew it, too. - -A man he was, in a word, of deep and ever-shifting moods, and with more -difficulty than most in recognizing the underlying self of which these -outer aspects were projections masquerading as complete personalities. - -The underlying ego that unified these projections was of the type -touched with so sure a hand in the opening pages of an inspired little -book: _The Plea of Pan_. O'Malley was useless as a citizen and knew it. -Sometimes--he was ashamed of it as well. - -Occasionally, and at the time of this particular "memorable adventure," -aged thirty, he acted as foreign correspondent; but even as such he was -the kind of newspaper man that not merely collects news, but discovers, -reveals, creates it. Wise in their generation, the editors who -commissioned him remembered when his copy came in that they were editors. -A roving commission among the tribes of the Caucasus was his assignment -at the moment, and a better man for the purpose would have been hard to -find, since he knew beauty, had a keen eye for human nature, divined what -was vital and picturesque, and had, further, the power to set it down in -brief terms born directly of his vivid emotions. - -When first I knew him he lived--nowhere, being always on the move. He -kept, however, a dingy little room near Paddington where his books and -papers accumulated, undusted but safe, and where the manuscripts of his -adventures were found when his death made me the executor of his few -belongings. The key was in his pocket, carefully ticketed with a bone -label. And this, the only evidence of practical forethought I ever -discovered in him, was proof that something in that room was deemed by -him of value--to others. It certainly was not the heterogeneous -collection of second-hand books, nor the hundreds of unlabeled -photographs and sketches. Can it have been the MSS. of stories, notes, -and episodes I found, almost carefully piled and tabulated with titles, -in a dirty kitbag of green Willesden canvas? - -Some of these he had told me (with a greater vividness than he could -command by pen); others were new; many unfinished. All were unusual, -to say the least. All, too, had obviously happened to himself at some -period of his roving career, though here and there he had disguised his -own part in them by Hoffmann's device of throwing the action into the -third person. Those told to me by word of mouth I could only feel were -true, true for himself at least. In no sense were they mere inventions, -but arose in moments of vision upon a structure of solid events. Ten -men will describe in as many different ways a snake crossing their path; -but, besides these, there exists an eleventh man who sees more than the -snake, the path, the movement. O'Malley was some such eleventh man. He -saw the thing whole, from some kind of inner bird's-eye view, while the -ten saw only limited aspects of it from various angles. He was accused -of adding details, therefore, because he had divined their presence while -still below the horizon. Before they emerged the others had already left. - -By which I mean that he saw in commonplace events the movement of greater -tides than others saw. At one remove of time or distance--a minute or a -mile--he perceived _all_. While the ten chattered volubly about the name -of the snake, he was caught beyond by the beauty of the path, the glory -of the running glide, the nature of the forces that drove, hindered, -modified. - -The others reasoned where the snake was going, its length in inches and -its speed per second, while he, ignoring such superficial details, -plunged as it were into the very nature of the creature's being. And in -this idiosyncrasy, which he shared with all persons of mystical -temperament, is exemplified a certain curious contempt for Reason that he -had. For him mere intellectuality, by which the modern world sets such -store, was a valley of dry bones. Its worship was a worship of the form. -It missed the essential inner truth because such inner truth could be -known only by being it, feeling it. The intellectual attitude of mind, in -a word, was critical, not creative, and to be unimaginative seemed to -him, therefore, the worst form of unintelligence. - -"The arid, sterile minds!" he would cry in a burst of his Celtic -enthusiasm. "Where, I ask ye, did the philosophies and sciences of the -world assist the progress of any single soul a blessed inch?" - -Any little Dreamer in his top-floor back, spinning by rushlight his -web of beauty, was greater than the finest critical intelligence that -ever lived. The one, for all his poor technique, was stammering over -something God had whispered to him, the other merely destroying thoughts -invented by the brain of man. - -And this attitude of mind, because of its interpretative effect upon -what follows, justifies mention. For to O'Malley, in some way difficult -to explain, Reason and Intellect, as such, had come to be worshipped -by men today out of all proportion to their real value. Consciousness, -focused too exclusively upon them, had exalted them out of due proportion -in the spiritual economy. To make a god of them was to make an empty and -inadequate god. Reason should be the guardian of the soul's advance, but -not the object. Its function was that of a great sandpaper which should -clear the way of excrescences, but its worship was to allow a detail to -assume a disproportionate importance. - -Not that he was fool enough to despise Reason in what he called its -proper place, but that he was "wise" enough--not that he was -"intellectual" enough!--to recognize its futility in measuring the things -of the soul. For him there existed a more fundamental understanding than -Reason, and it was, apparently, an inner and natural understanding. - -"The greatest Teacher we ever had," I once heard him say, "ignored the -intellect, and who, will ye tell me, can by searching find out God? And -yet what else is worth finding out...? Isn't it only by becoming as a -little child--a child that feels and never reasons things--that any -one shall enter the kingdom...? Where will the giant intellects be before -the Great White Throne when a simple man with the heart of a child will -top the lot of 'em?" - -"Nature, I'm convinced," he said another time, though he said it with -puzzled eyes and a mind obviously groping, "is our next step. Reason -has done its best for centuries, and gets no further. It _can_ get no -further, for it can do nothing for the inner life which is the sole -reality. We must return to Nature and a purified intuition, to a greater -reliance upon what is now subconscious, back to that sweet, grave -guidance of the Universe which we've discarded with the primitive -state--a spiritual intelligence, really, divorced from mere -intellectuality." - -And by Nature he did not mean a return to savagery. There was no idea -of going backwards in his wild words. Rather he looked forwards, in some -way hard to understand, to a state when Man, with the best results of -Reason in his pocket, might return to the instinctive life--to feeling -_with_--to the sinking down of the modern, exaggerated intellectual -personality into its rightful place as guide instead of leader. He called -it a Return to Nature, but what he meant, I always felt, was back to a -sense of kinship with the Universe which men, through worshipping the -intellect alone, had lost. Men today prided themselves upon their -superiority to Nature as beings separate and apart. O'Malley sought, on -the contrary, a development, if not a revival, of some faultless -instinct, due to kinship with her, which--to take extremes--shall direct -alike the animal and the inspired man, guiding the wild bee and the -homing pigeon, and--the soul toward its God. - -This clue, as he called it, crystallized so neatly and so conclusively -his own mental struggles, that he had called a halt, as it were, to his -own intellectual development.... The name and family of the snake, hence, -meant to him the least important things about it. He caught, wildly yet -consistently, at the psychic links that bound the snake and Nature and -himself together with all creation. Troops of adventurous thoughts had -all his life "gone west" to colonize this land of speculative dream. True -to his idea, he "thought" with his emotions as much as with his brain, -and in the broken record of the adventure that this book relates, this -strange passion of his temperament remains the vital clue. For it -happened _in_, as well as to, himself. His Being could include the Earth -by feeling with her, whereas his intellect could merely criticize, and so -belittle, the details of such inclusion. - -Many a time, while he stretched credulity to a point, I have heard him -apologize in some such way for his method. It was the splendor of his -belief that made the thing so convincing in the telling, for later when -I found the same tale written down it seemed somehow to have failed -of an equal achievement. The truth was that no one language would -convey the extraordinary freight that was carried so easily by his -instinctive choice of gestures, tone, and glance. With him these were -consummately interpretative. - - * * * * * - -Before the age of thirty he had written and published a volume or two of -curious tales, all dealing with extensions of the personality, a subject -that interested him deeply, and one he understood because he drew the -material largely from himself. Psychology he simply devoured, even in its -most fantastic and speculative forms; and though perhaps his vision was -incalculably greater than his power of technique, these strange books had -a certain value and formed a genuine contribution to the thought on that -particular subject. In England naturally they fell dead, but their -translation into German brought him a wider and more intelligent circle. -The common public unfamiliar with Sally Beauchamp No. 4, with Hélène -Smith, or with Dr. Hanna, found in these studies of divided personality, -and these singular extensions of the human consciousness, only -extravagance and imagination run to wildness. Yet, none the less, the -substratum of truth upon which O'Malley had built them, lay actually -within his own personal experience. The books had brought him here and -there acquaintances of value; and among these latter was a German doctor, -Heinrich Stahl. With Dr. Stahl the Irishman crossed swords through months -of somewhat irregular correspondence, until at length the two had met on -board a steamer where the German held the position of ship's doctor. The -acquaintanceship had grown into something approaching friendship, -although the two men stood apparently at the opposite poles of thought. -From time to time they still met. - -In appearance there was nothing unusual about O'Malley, unless it was the -contrast of the light blue eyes with the dark hair. Never, I think, did I -see him in anything but that old grey flannel suit, with the low collar -and shabby glistening tie. He was of medium height, delicately built, his -hands more like a girl's than a man's. In towns he shaved and looked -fairly presentable, but once upon his travels he grew beard and moustache -and would forget for weeks to have his hair cut, so that it fell in a -tangle over forehead and eyes. - -His manner changed with the abruptness of his moods. Sometimes active and -alert, at others for days together he would become absent, dreamy, -absorbed, half oblivious of the outer world, his movements and actions -dictated by subconscious instinct rather than regulated by volition. -And one cause of that loneliness of spirit which was undoubtedly a chief -pain in life to him, was the fact that ordinary folk were puzzled how to -take him, or to know which of these many extreme moods was the man -himself. Uncomfortable, unsatisfactory, elusive, not to be counted upon, -they deemed him: and from their point of view they were undoubtedly -right. The sympathy and above all the companionship he needed, genuinely -craved too, were thus denied to him by the faults of his own temperament. -With women his intercourse was of the slightest; in a sense he did not -know the need of them much. For one thing, the feminine element in his -own nature was too strong, and he was not conscious, as most men are, of -the great gap of incompleteness women may so exquisitely fill; and, for -another, its obvious corollary perhaps, when they did come into his life, -they gave him more than he could comfortably deal with. They offered him -more than he needed. - -In this way, while he perhaps had never fallen in love, as the saying has -it, he had certainly known that high splendor of devotion which means the -losing of oneself in others, that exalted love which seeks not any reward -of possession because it is itself so utterly possessed. He was pure, -too; in the sense that it never occurred to him to be otherwise. - -Chief cause of his loneliness--so far as I could judge his complex -personality at all--seemed that he never found a sympathetic, truly -understanding ear for those deeply primitive longings that fairly ravaged -his heart. And this very isolation made him often afraid; it proved that -the rest of the world, the sane majority at any rate, said No to them. I, -who loved him and listened, yet never quite apprehended his full meaning. -Far more than the common Call of the Wild, it was. He yearned, not so -much for a world savage, uncivilized, as for a perfectly natural one that -had never known, perhaps never needed civilization--a state of freedom in -a life unstained. - -He never wholly understood, I think, the reason why he found himself in -such stern protest against the modern state of things, why people -produced in him a state of death so that he turned from men to Nature--to -find life. The things the nations exclusively troubled themselves about -all seemed to him so obviously vain and worthless, and, though he never -even in his highest moments felt the claims of sainthood, it puzzled and -perplexed him deeply that the conquest over Nature in all its -multifarious forms today should seem to them so infinitely more important -than the conquest over self. What the world with common consent called -Reality, seemed ever to him the most crude and obvious, the most -transient, the most blatant un-Reality. His love of Nature was more than -the mere joy of tumultuous pagan instincts. It was, in the kind of simple -life he craved, the first step toward the recovery of noble, dignified, -enfranchised living. In the denial of all this external flummery he -hated, it would leave the soul disengaged and free, able to turn her -activities within for spiritual development. Civilization now suffocated, -smothered, killed the soul. Being in the hopeless minority, he felt he -must be somewhere wrong, at fault, deceived. For all men, from a -statesman to an engine-driver, agreed that the accumulation of external -possessions had value, and that the importance of material gain was -real.... Yet, for himself, he always turned for comfort to the Earth. -The wise and wonderful Earth opened her mind and her deep heart to him -in a way few other men seemed to know. Through Nature he could move -blind-folded along, yet find his way to strength and sympathy. A noble, -gracious life stirred in him then which the pettier human world denied. -He often would compare the thin help or fellowship he gained from -ordinary social intercourse, or from what had seemed at the time quite a -successful gathering of his kind, with the power he gained from a visit -to the woods or mountains. The former, as a rule, evaporated in a single -day; the other stayed, with ever growing power, to bless whole weeks and -months. - -And hence it was, whether owing to the truth or ignorance of his -attitude, that a sense of bleak loneliness spread through all his life, -and more and more he turned from men to Nature. - -Moreover, foolish as it must sound, I was sometimes aware that deep down -in him hid some nameless, indefinable quality that proclaimed him fitted -to live in conditions that had never known the restraints of modern -conventions--a very different thing to doing without them once known. A -kind of childlike, transcendental innocence he certainly possessed, -_naïf_, most engaging, and--utterly impossible. It showed itself -indirectly, I think, in this distress under modern conditions. The -multifarious apparatus of the spirit of Today oppressed him; its rush and -luxury and artificiality harassed him beyond belief. The terror of cities -ran in his very blood. - -When I describe him as something of an outcast, therefore, it will be -seen that he was such both voluntarily and involuntarily. - -"What the world has gained by brains is simply nothing to what it has -lost by them--" - -"A dream, my dear fellow, a mere dream," I stopped him, yet with -sympathy because I knew he found relief this way. "Your constructive -imagination is too active." - -"By Gad," he replied warmly, "but there is a place somewhere, or a state -of mind--the same thing--where it's more than a dream. And, what's more, -bless your stodgy old heart, some day I'll get there." - -"Not in England, at any rate," I suggested. - -He stared at me a moment, his eyes suddenly charged with dreams. Then, -characteristically, he snorted. He flung his hand out with a gesture that -should push the present further from him. - -"I've always liked the Eastern theory--old theory anyhow if not -Eastern--that intense yearnings end by creating a place where they are -fulfilled--" - -"Subjectively--" - -"Of course; objectively means incompletely. I mean a Heaven built up by -desire and intense longing all your life. Your own thought makes it. -Living idea, that!" - -"Another dream, Terence O'Malley," I laughed, "but beautiful and -seductive." - -To argue bored him. He loved to state his matter, fill it with detail, -blow the heated breath of life into it, and then leave it. Argument -belittled without clarifying; criticism destroyed, sealing up the sources -of life. Any fool could argue; the small, denying minds were always -critics. - -"A dream, but a damned foine one, let me tell you," he exclaimed, -recovering his brogue in his enthusiasm. He glared at me a second, then -burst out laughing. "Tis better to have dhreamed and waked," he added, -"than never to have dhreamed at all." - -And then he poured out O'Shaughnessy's passionate ode to the Dreamers of -the world: - -We are the music-makers, -And we are the dreamers of dreams, -Wandering by lone sea-breakers, -And sitting by desolate streams; -World-losers and world-forsakers, -On whom the pale moon gleams; -Yet we are the movers and shakers -Of the world forever, it seems. - -With wonderful deathless ditties -We build up the world's great cities, -And out of a fabulous story -We fashion an empire's glory; -One man with a dream, at pleasure, -Shall go forth and conquer a crown; -And three with a new song's measure -Can trample an empire down. - -We, in the ages lying -In the buried past of the earth, -Built Nineveh with our sighing, -And Babel itself with our mirth; -And o'erthrew them with prophesying -To the old of the new world's worth; -For each age is a dream that is dying, -Or one that is coming to birth. - -For this passion for some simple old-world innocence and beauty lay in -his soul like a lust--self-feeding and voracious. - - - - -III - -"Lonely! Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?" - ---THOREAU - - -March had passed shouting away, and April was whispering deliciously -among her scented showers when O'Malley went on board the coasting -steamer at Marseilles for the Levant and the Black Sea. The _mistral_ -made the land unbearable, but herds of white horses ran galloping -over the bay beneath a sky of childhood's blue. The ship started -punctually--he came on board as usual with a bare minute's margin--and -from his rapid survey of the thronged upper deck, it seems, he singled -out on the instant this man and boy, wondering first vaguely at their -uncommon air of bulk, secondly at the absence of detail which should -confirm it. They appeared so much bigger than they actually were. The -laughter, rising in his heart, however, did not get as far as his lips. - -For this appearance of massive bulk, and of shoulders comely yet almost -humped, was not borne out by a direct inspection. It was a mental -impression. The man, though broad and well-proportioned, with heavy -back and neck and uncommonly sturdy torso, was in no sense monstrous. -It was upon the corner of the eye that the bulk and hugeness dawned, a -false report that melted under direct vision. O'Malley took him in with -attention merging in respect, searching in vain for the detail of back -and limbs and neck that suggested so curiously the sense of the -gigantic. The boy beside him, obviously son, possessed the same elusive -attributes--felt yet never positively seen. - -Passing down to his cabin, wondering vaguely to what nationality they -might belong, he was immediately behind them, elbowing French and German -tourists, when the father abruptly turned and faced him. Their gaze met. -O'Malley started. - -"Whew...!" ran some silent expression like fire through his brain. - -Out of a massive visage, placid for all its ruggedness, shone eyes -large and timid as those of an animal or child bewildered among so many -people. There was an expression in them not so much cowed or dismayed as -"un-refuged"--the eyes of the hunted creature. That, at least, was the -first thing they betrayed; for the same second the quick-blooded Celt -caught another look: the look of a hunted creature that at last knows -shelter and has found it. The first expression had emerged, then -withdrawn again swiftly like an animal into its hole where safety lay. -Before disappearing, it had flashed a wireless message of warning, of -welcome, of explanation--he knew not what term to use--to another of its -own kind, to _himself_. - -O'Malley, utterly arrested, stood and stared. He would have spoken, for -the invitation seemed obvious enough, but there came an odd catch in his -breath, and words failed altogether. The boy, peering at him sideways, -clung to his great parent's side. For perhaps ten seconds there was this -interchange of staring, intimate staring, between the three of them ... -and then the Irishman, confused, more than a little agitated, ended the -silent introduction with an imperceptible bow and passed on slowly, -knocking absent-mindedly through the crowd, down to his cabin on the -lower deck. - -In his heart, deep down, stirred an indescribable sympathy with something -he divined in these two that was akin to himself, but that as yet he -could not name. On the surface he felt an emotion he knew not whether to -call uneasiness or surprise, but crowding past it, half smothering it, -rose this other more profound emotion. Something enormously winning in -the atmosphere of father and son called to him in the silence: it was -significant, oddly buried; not yet had it emerged enough to be confessed -and labeled. But each had recognized it in the other. Each knew. Each -waited. And it was extraordinarily disturbing. - -Before unpacking, he sat for a long time on his berth, thinking....trying -in vain to catch through a thunder of surprising emotions the word that -might bring explanation. That strange impression of giant bulk, -unsupported by actual measurements; that look of startled security -seeking shelter; that other look of being sure, of knowing where to go -and being actually _en route_,--all these, he felt, grew from the same -hidden cause whereof they were symptoms. It was this hidden thing in the -man that had reached out invisibly and fired his own consciousness as -their gaze met in that brief instant. And it had disturbed him so -profoundly because the very same lost thing lay buried in himself. The -man knew, whereas he anticipated merely--as yet. What was it? Why came -there with it both happiness and fear? - -The word that kept chasing itself in a circle like a kitten after its own -tail, yet bringing no explanation, was Loneliness--a loneliness that must -be whispered. For it was loneliness on the verge of finding relief. And -if proclaimed too loud, there might come those who would interfere and -prevent relief. The man, and the boy too for that matter, were escaping. -They had found the way back, were ready and eager, moreover, to show it -to other prisoners. - -And this was as near as O'Malley could come to explanation. He began to -understand dimly--and with an extraordinary excitement of happiness. - -"Well--and the bigness?" I asked, seizing on a practical point after -listening to his dreaming, "what do you make of that? It must have had -some definite cause surely?" - -He turned and fixed his light blue eyes on mine as we paced beside the -Serpentine that summer afternoon when I first heard the story told. -He was half grave, half laughing. - -"The size, the bulk, the bigness," he replied, "must have been in -reality the expression of some mental quality that reached me -psychically, producing its effect directly on my mind and not upon the -eyes at all." In telling the story he used a simile omitted in the -writing of it, because his sense of humor perceived that no possible turn -of phrase could save it from grotesqueness when actually it was far from -grotesque--extraordinarily pathetic rather: "As though," he said, "the -great back and shoulders carried beneath the loose black cape--humps, -projections at least; but projections not ugly in themselves, comely even -in some perfectly natural way, that lent to his person this idea of giant -size. His body, though large, was normal so far as its proportions were -concerned. In his spirit, though, there hid another shape. An aspect of -that other shape somehow reached my mind." - -Then, seeing that I found nothing at the moment to reply, he added: - -"As an angry man you may picture to yourself as red, or a jealous -man as green!" He laughed aloud. "D'ye see, now? It was not really a -physical business at all!" - - - - -IV - -"We think with only a small part of the past, but it is with our -entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, -will, and act." - ---HENRI BERGSON - - -The balance of his fellow-passengers were not distinguished. There was a -company of French tourists gong to Naples, and another lot of Germans -bound for Athens, some business folk for Smyrna and Constantinople, and a -sprinkling of Russians going home via Odessa, Batoum, or Novorossisk. - -In his own stateroom, occupying the upper berth, was a little -round-bodied, red-faced Canadian drummer, "traveling" in -harvest-machines. The name of the machine, its price, and the terms of -purchase were his universe; he knew them in several languages; beyond -them, nothing. He was good-natured, conceding anything to save trouble. -"D'ye mind the light for a bit while I read in bed?" asked O'Malley. -"Don't mind anything much," was the cheery reply. "I'm not particular; -I'm easy-going and you needn't bother." He turned over to sleep. "Old -traveler," he added, his voice muffled by sheets and blankets, "and take -things as they come." And the only objection O'Malley found in him was -that he took things as they came to the point of not taking baths at all, -and not even taking all his garments off when he went to bed. - -The Captain, whom he knew from previous voyages, a genial, rough-voiced -sailor from Sassnitz, chided him for so nearly missing the boat--"as -usual." - -"You're too late for a seat at my taple," he said with his laughing -growl; "it's a pidy. You should have led me know py telegram, and I then -kepd your place. Now you find room at the doctor's taple howefer -berhaps...!" - -"Steamer's very crowded this time," O'Malley replied, shrugging his -shoulders; "but you'll let me come up sometimes for a smoke with you -on the bridge?" - -"Of course, of course." - -"Anybody interesting on board?" he asked after a moment's pause. - -The jolly Captain laughed. "'Pout the zame as usual, you know. Nothing to -stop ze ship! Ask ze doctor; he knows zooner than me. But, anyway, the -nice ones, they get zeazick always and dizappear. Going Trebizond this -time?" he added. - -"No; Batoum." - -"Ach! Oil?" - -"Caucasus generally--up in the mountains a bit." - -"God blenty veapons then, I hope. They shoot you for two pfennig up -there!" And he was off with his hearty deep laugh and rather ponderous -briskness toward the bridge. - -Thus O'Malley found himself placed for meals at the right hand of -Dr. Stahl; opposite him, on the doctor's left, a talkative Moscow -fur-merchant who, having come to definite conclusions of his own about -things n general, was persuaded the rest of the world must share them, -and who delivered verbose commonplaces with a kind of pontifical -utterance sometimes amusing, but usually boring; on his right a -gentle-eyed, brown-bearded Armenian priest from the Venice monastery that -had sheltered Byron, a man who ate everything except soup with his knife, -yet with a daintiness that made one marvel, and with hands so graceful -they might almost have replaced the knife without off offence. Beyond the -priest sat the rotund Canadian drummer. He kept silence, watched the -dishes carefully lest anything should escape him, and--ate. Lower down on -the opposite side, one or two nondescripts between, sat the big, blond, -bearded stranger with his son. Diagonally across from himself and the -doctor, they were in full view. - -O'Malley talked to all and sundry whom his voice could reach, being -easily forthcoming to people whom he was not likely to see again. But -he was particularly pleased to find himself next to the ship's doctor, -Dr. Heinrich Stahl, for the man both attracted and antagonized him, and -they had crossed swords pleasantly on more voyages than one. There -was a fundamental contradiction in his character due--O'Malley -divined--to the fact that his experiences did not tally as he wished them -to do with his beliefs, or vice versa. Affecting to believe in nothing, -he occasionally dropped remarks that betrayed a belief in all kinds of -things, unorthodox things. Then, having led the Irishman into confessions -of his own fairy faith, he would abruptly rule the whole subject out of -order with some cynical phrase that closed discussion. In this sarcastic -attitude O'Malley detected a pose assumed for his own protection. "No man -of sense can possibly accept such a thing; it is incredible and foolish." -Yet, the biting way he said the words betrayed him; the very thing his -reason rejected, his soul believed.... - -These vivid impressions the Irishman had of people, one wonders how -accurate they were! In this case, perhaps, he was not far from the -truth. That a man with Dr. Stahl's knowledge and ability could be -content to hide his light under the bushel of a mere _Schiffsarzt_ -required explanation. His own explanation was that he wanted leisure for -thinking and writing. Bald-headed, slovenly, prematurely old, his beard -stained with tobacco and snuff, under-sized, scientific in the -imaginative sense that made him speculative beyond mere formulae, his was -an individuality that inspired a respect one could never quite account -for. He had keen dark eyes that twinkled, sometimes mockingly, sometimes, -if the word may be allowed, bitterly, yet often too with a good-humored -amusement which sympathy with human weaknesses could alone have -caused. A warm heart he certainly had, as more than one forlorn -passenger could testify. - -Conversation at their table was slow at first. It began at the lower end -where the French tourists chattered briskly over the soup, then crept -upwards like a slow fire o'erleaping various individuals who would not -catch. For instance, it passed the harvest-machine man; it passed the -nondescripts; it also passed the big light-haired stranger and his son. - -At the table behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the -Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side -Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found -it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to fragments of -the talk O'Malley found that his own eyes kept wandering down the -table--diagonally across--to the two strangers. Once or twice he -intercepted the doctor's glance traveling in the same direction, and on -these occasions it was on the tip of his tongue to make a remark about -them, or to ask a question. Yet the words did not come. Dr. Stahl, he -felt, knew a similar hesitation. Each, wanting to speak, yet kept -silence, waiting for the other to break the ice. - -"This _mistral_ is tiresome," observed the doctor, as the tide of talk -flowed up to his end and made a remark necessary. "It tries the nerves -of some." He glanced at O'Malley, but it was the fur-merchant who -replied, spreading a be-ringed hand over his plate to feel the warmth. - -"I know it well," he said pompously in a tone of finality; "it lasts -three, six, or nine days. But once across the Golfe de Lyons we shall be -free of it." - -"You think so? Ah, I am glad," ventured the priest with a timid smile -while he adroitly balanced meat and bullet-like green peas upon his -knife-blade. Tone, smile, and gesture were so gentle that the use of -steel in any form seemed incongruous. - -The voice of the fur-merchant came in domineeringly. - -"Of course. I have made this trip so often, I _know_. St. Petersburg to -Paris, a few weeks on the Riviera, then back by Constantinople and the -Crimea. It is nothing. I remember last year--" He pushed a large pearl -pin more deeply into his speckled tie and began a story that proved -chiefly how luxuriously he traveled. His eyes tried to draw the whole -end of the table into his circle, but while the Armenian listened -politely, with smiles and bows, Dr. Stahl turned to the Irishman again. -It Vas the year of Halley's comet and he began talking interestingly -about it. - -"... Three o'clock in the morning--any morning, yes--is the best time," -the doctor concluded, "and I'll have you called. You must see it through -my telescope. End of this week, say, after we leave Catania and turn -eastwards..." - -And at this instant, following a roar of laughter from the Captain's -table, came one of those abrupt pauses that sometimes catch an entire -room at once. All voices hushed. Even the merchant, setting down his -champagne glass, fell silent. One heard only the beating of the steamer's -screw, the rush of water below the port-holes, the soft scuffle of the -stewards' feet. The conclusion of the doctor's inconsiderable sentence -was sharply audible all over the room-- - -"... crossing the Ionian Sea toward the Isles of Greece." - -It rang across the pause, and at the same moment O'Malley caught the eyes -of the big stranger lifted suddenly and fixed upon the speaker's face as -though the words had summoned him. - -They shifted the same instant to his own, then dropped again to his -plate. Again the clatter of conversation drowned the room as before; the -merchant resumed his self-description in terms of gold; the doctor -discussed the gases of the comet's tail. But the swift-blooded Irishman -felt himself caught away strangely and suddenly into another world. -Out of the abyss of the subconscious there rose a gesture prophetic and -immense. The trivial phrase and that intercepted look opened a great -door of wonder in his heart. In a second he grew "absent-minded." Or, -rather, something touched a button and the whole machinery of his -personality shifted round noiselessly and instantaneously, presenting an -immediate new facet to the world. His normal, puny self-consciousness -slipped a moment into the majestic calm of some far larger state that -the stranger also knew. The Universe lies in every human heart, and he -plunged into that archetypal world that stands so close behind all -sensible appearances. He could neither explain nor attempt to explain, -but he sailed away into some giant swimming mood of beauty wherein -steamer, passengers, talk, faded utterly, the stranger and his son -remaining alone real and vital. He had seen; he could never forget. -Chance prepared the setting, but immense powers had rushed in and availed -themselves of it. Something deeply buried had flamed from the stranger's -eyes and beckoned to him. The fire ran from the big man to himself and -was gone. - -"The Isles of Greece--" The words were simple enough, yet it seemed to -O'Malley that the look they summoned to the stranger's eyes ensouled -them, transfiguring them with the significance of vital clues. They -touched the fringe of a mystery, magnificent and remote--some -transcendent psychical drama in the 'life of this man whose "bigness" -and whose "loneliness that must be whispered" were also in their way -other vital clues. Moreover, remembering his first sight of these two -upon the upper deck a few hours before, he understood that his own -spirit, by virtue of its peculiar and primitive yearnings, was involved -in the same mystery and included in the same hidden passion. - -The little incident illustrates admirably O'Malley's idiosyncrasy of -"seeing whole." In a lightning flash his inner sense had associated the -words and the glance, divining that the one had caused the other. That -pause provided the opportunity.... If Imagination, then it was creative -imagination; if true, it was assuredly spiritual insight of a rare -quality. - -He became aware that the twinkling eyes of his neighbor were observing -him keenly. For some moments evidently he had been absent-mindedly -staring down the table. He turned quickly and looked at the doctor -with frankness. This time it was impossible to avoid speech of some -kind. - -"Following those lights that do mislead the morn?" asked Dr. Stahl -slyly. "Your thoughts have been traveling. You've heard none of my last -remarks!" - -Under the clamor of the merchant's voice O'Malley replied in a lowered -tone: - -"I was watching those two half-way down the table opposite. They interest -you as well, I see." It was not a challenge exactly; if the tone was -aggressive, it was merely that he felt the subject was one on which they -would differ, and he scented an approaching discussion. The doctor's -reply, indicating agreement, surprised him a good deal. - -"They do; they interest me greatly." There was no trace of fight in the -voice. "That should cause _you_ no surprise." - -"Me--they simply fascinate," said O'Malley, always easily drawn. "What is -it? What do you see about them that is unusual? Do you, too, see them -'big'?" The doctor did not answer at once, and O'Malley added, "The -father's a tremendous fellow, but it's not that--" - -"Partly, though," said the other, "partly, I think." - -"What else, then?" The fur-merchant, still talking, prevented their -being overheard. "What is it marks them off so from the rest?" - -"Of all people _you_ should see," smiled the doctor quietly. "If a man -of your imagination sees nothing, what shall a poor exact mind like -myself see?" He eyed him keenly a moment. "You really mean that you -detect nothing?" - -"A certain distinction, yes; a certain aloofness from others. Isolated, -they seem in a way; rather a splendid isolation I should call it--" - -And then he stopped abruptly. It was most curious, but he was aware -that unwittingly in this way he had stumbled upon the truth, aware at -the same time that he resented discussing it with his companion--because -it meant at the same time discussing himself or something in himself he -wished to hide. His entire mood shifted again with completeness and -rapidity. He could not help it. It seemed suddenly as though he had been -telling the doctor secrets about himself, secrets moreover he would not -treat sympathetically. The doctor had been "at him," so to speak, -searching the depths of him with a probing acuteness the casual language -had disguised. - -"What are they, do you suppose: Finns, Russians, Norwegians, or what?" -the doctor asked. And the other replied briefly that he guessed they -might be Russians perhaps, South Russians. His tone was different. He -wished to avoid further discussion. At the first opportunity he neatly -changed the conversation. - -It was curious, the way proof came to him. Something in himself, wild as -the desert, something to do with that love of primitive life he discussed -only with the few who were intimately sympathetic toward it, this -something in his soul was so akin to a similar passion in these -strangers that to talk of it was to betray himself as well as them. - -Further, he resented Dr. Stahl's interest in them, because he felt it was -critical and scientific. Not far behind hid the analysis that would lay -them bare, leading to their destruction. A profound instinctive sense of -self-preservation had been stirred within him. - -Already, mysteriously guided by secret affinities, he had ranged himself -on the side of the strangers. - - - - -V - -"Mythology contains the history of the archetypal world. It comprehends -Past, Present, and Future." - ---NOVALIS, _Flower Pollen, Translated by U.C.B. - - -In this way there came between these two the slight barrier of a -forbidden subject that grew because neither destroyed it. O'Malley had -erected it; Dr. Stahl respected it. Neither referred again for a time to -the big Russian and his son. - -In his written account O'Malley, who was certainly no constructive -literary craftsman, left out apparently countless little confirmatory -details. By word of mouth he made me feel at once that this mystery -existed, however; and to weld the two together is a difficult task. There -nevertheless was this something about the Russian and his boy that -excited deep curiosity, accompanied by an aversion on the part of the -other passengers that isolated them; also, there was this competition on -the part of the two friends to solve it, from opposing motives. - -Had either of the strangers fallen seasick, the advantage would have -been easily with Dr. Stahl--professionally, but since they remained well, -and the doctor was in constant demand by the other passengers, it was -the Irishman who won the first move and came to close quarters by making -a personal acquaintance. His strong desire helped matters of course; for -he noticed with indignation that these two, quiet and inoffensive as they -were and with no salient cause of offence, were yet rejected by the main -body of passengers. They seemed to possess a quality that somehow -insulated them from approach, sending them effectually "to Coventry," and -in a small steamer where the travelers settle down into a kind of big -family life, this isolation was unpleasantly noticeable. - -It stood out in numerous little details that only a keen observer closely -watching could have taken into account. Small advances, travelers' -courtesies, and the like that ordinarily should have led to conversation, -in their case led to nothing. The other passengers invariably moved away -after a few moments, politely excusing themselves, as it were, from -further intercourse. And although at first the sight of this stirred in -him an instinct of revolt that was almost anger, he soon felt that the -couple not merely failed to invite, but even emanated some definite -atmosphere that repelled. And each time he witnessed these little scenes, -there grew more strongly in him the original picture he had formed of -them as beings rejected and alone, hunted by humanity as a whole, seeking -escape from loneliness into a place of refuge that they knew of, -definitely at last _en route_. - -Only an imaginative mind, thus concentrated upon them, could have -divined all this; yet to O'Malley it seemed plain as the day. With the -certitude, moreover, came the feeling, ever stronger, that the refuge -they sought would prove to be also the refuge he himself sought, the -difference being that whereas they knew, he still hesitated. - -Yet, in spite of this secret sympathy, imagined or discovered, he found -it no easy matter to approach the big man for speech. For a day and a -half he merely watched; attraction so strong excited caution; he paused, -waiting. His attention, however, was so keen that he seemed always to -know where they were and what they were doing. By instinct he was -aware in what part of the ship they would be found--for the most part -leaning over the rail alone in the bows, staring down at the churned -water together by the screws, pacing the after-deck in the dusk or early -morning when no one was about, or hidden away in some corner of the -upper deck, side by side, gazing at sea and sky. Their method of walking, -too, made it easy to single them out from the rest--a free, swaying -movement of the limbs, a swing of the shoulders, a gait that was -lumbering, almost clumsy, half defiant, yet at the same time graceful, -and curiously rapid. The body moved along swiftly for all its air of -blundering--a motion which was a counterpart of that elusive appearance -of great bulk, and equally difficult of exact determination. An air -went with them of being ridiculously confined by the narrow little decks. - -Thus it was that Genoa had been made and the ship was already half -way on to Naples before the opportunity for closer acquaintance presented -itself. Rather, O'Malley, unable longer to resist, forced it. It -seemed, too, inevitable as sunrise. - -Rain had followed the _mistral_ and the sea was rough. A rich land-taste -came about the ship like the smell of wet oaks when wind sweeps their -leaves after a sousing shower. In the hour before dinner, the decks -slippery with moisture, only one or two wrapped-up passengers in -deck-chairs below the awning, O'Malley, following a sure inner lead, -came out of the stuffy smoking-room into the air. It was already dark -and the drive of mist-like rain somewhat obscured his vision after the -glare. Only for a moment though--for almost the first thing he saw -was the Russian and his boy moving in front of him toward the aft -compasses. Like a single figure, huge and shadowy, they passed into the -darkness beyond with a speed that seemed as usual out of proportion -to their actual stride. They lumbered rapidly away. O'Malley caught that -final swing of the man's great shoulders as they disappeared, and, -leaving the covered deck, he made straight after them. And though neither -gave any sign that they had seen him, he felt that they were aware of his -coming--and even invited him. - -As he drew close a roll of the vessel brought them almost into each -other's arms, and the boy, half hidden beneath his parent's flowing -cloak, looked up at once and smiled. The saloon light fell dimly upon -his face. The Irishman saw that friendly smile of welcome, and lurched -forward with the roll of the deck. They brought up against the bulwarks, -and the big man put out an arm to steady him. They all three laughed -together. At close quarters, as usual again, the impression of bulk had -disappeared. - -And then, at first, utterly unlike real life, they said--nothing. The -boy moved round and stood close to his side so that he found himself -placed between them, all three leaning forward over the rails watching -the phosphorescence of the foam-streaked Mediterranean. - -Dusk lay over the sea; the shores of Italy not near enough to be visible; -the mist, the hour, the loneliness of the deserted decks, and something -else that was nameless, shut them in, these three, in a little world of -their own. A sentence or two rose in O'Malley's mind, but without finding -utterance, for he felt that no spoken words were necessary. He was -accepted without more ado. A deep natural sympathy existed between -them, recognized intuitively from that moment of first mutual inspection -at Marseilles. It was instinctive, almost as with animals. The action -of the boy in coming round to his side, unhindered by the father, was -the symbol of utter confidence and welcome. - -There came, then, one of those splendid and significant moments that -occasionally, for some, burst into life, flooding all barriers, breaking -down as with a flaming light the thousand erections of shadow that close -one in. Something imprisoned in himself swept outwards, rising like a -wave, bringing an expansion of life that "explained." It vanished, of -course, instantly again, but not before he had caught a flying remnant -that lit the broken puzzles of his heart and left things clearer. Before -thought, and therefore words, could overtake, it was gone; but there -remained at least this glimpse. The fire had flashed a light down -subterranean passages of his being and made visible for a passing second -some clue to his buried primitive yearnings. He partly understood. - -Standing there between these two this thing came over him with a -degree of intelligibility scarcely captured by his words. The man's -qualities--his quietness, peace, slowness, silence--betrayed somehow that -his inner life dwelt in a region vast and simple, shaping even his -exterior presentment with its own huge characteristics, a region wherein -the distress of the modern world's vulgar, futile strife could not -exist--more, could never _have_ existed. The Irishman, who had never -realized exactly why the life of Today to him was dreadful, now -understood it in the presence of this simple being with his atmosphere of -stately power. He was like a child, but a child of some pre-existence -utterly primitive and utterly forgotten; of no particular age, but of -some state that antedates all ages; simple in some noble, concentrated -sense that was prodigious, almost terrific. To stand thus beside him was -to stand beside a mighty silent fire, steadily glowing, a fire that fed -all lesser flames, because itself close to the central source of fire. He -felt warmed, lighted, vivified--made whole. The presence of this stranger -took him at a single gulp, as it were, straight into Nature--a Nature -that was alive. The man was part of her. Never before had he stood so -close and intimate. Cities and civilization fled away like transient -dreams, ashamed. The sun and moon and stars moved up and touched him. - -This word of lightning explanation, at least, came to him as he breathed -the other's atmosphere and presence. The region where this man's spirit -fed was at the center, whereas today men were active with a scattered, -superficial cleverness, at the periphery. He even understood that his -giant gait and movements were small outer evidences of this inner fact, -wholly in keeping. That blundering stupidity, half glorious, half -pathetic, with which he moved among his fellows was a physical -expression of this psychic fact that his spirit had never learned the -skilful tricks taught by civilization to lesser men. It was, in a way, -awe-inspiring, for he was now at last driving back full speed for his own -region and--escape. - -O'Malley knew himself caught, swept off his feet, momentarily driving -with him.... - -The singular deep satisfaction of it, standing there with these two in -the first moment, he describes as an entirely new sensation in his -life--an awareness that he was "complete." The boy touched his side and -he let an arm steal round to shelter him. The huge, bearded parent rose -in his massiveness against his other shoulder, hemming him in. For a -second he knew a swift and curious alarm, passing however almost at -once into the thrill of a rare happiness. In that moment, it was not the -passengers or the temper of Today who rejected them; it was they who -rejected the world: because they knew another and superior one--more, -they were in it. - -Then, without turning, the big man spoke, the words in heavy accented -English coming out laboriously and with slow, exceeding difficulty as -though utterance was a supreme effort. - -"You ... come ... with ... us?" It was like stammering almost. Still -more was it like essential inarticulateness struggling into an utterance -foreign to it--unsuited. The voice was a deep and windy bass, merging -with the noise of the sea below. - -"I'm going to the Caucasus," O'Malley replied; "up into the old, old -mountains, to--see things--to look about--to search--" He really wanted -to say much more, but the words lay dead or beyond reach. - -The big man nodded slowly. The boy listened. - -"And yourself--?" asked the Irishman, hardly knowing why he faltered and -trembled. - -The other smiled; a beauty that was beyond all language passed with that -smile across the great face in the dusk. - -"Some of us ... of ours ..." he spoke very slowly, very brokenly, -quarrying out the words with real labor, "... still survive... out -there.... We ... now go back. So very ... few ... remain.... And -you--come with us ..." - - - - -VI - -"In the spiritual Nature-Kingdom, man must everywhere seek his peculiar -territory and climate, his best occupation, his particular neighborhood, -in order to cultivate a Paradise in idea; this is the right system.... -Paradise is scattered over the whole earth, and that is why it has become -so unrecognizable." - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - -"Man began in instinct and will end in instinct. Instinct is genius in -Paradise, before the period of self-abstraction (self-knowledge)." - ---Ibid - - -"Look here, old man," he said to me, "I'll just tell you what it was, -because I know you won't laugh." - -We were lying under the big trees behind the Round Pond when he reached -this point, and his direct speech was so much more graphic than the -written account that I use it. He was in one of his rare moments of -confidence, excited, hat off, his shabby tie escaping from the shabbier -grey waistcoat. One sock lay untidily over his boot, showing bare leg. - -Children's voices floated to us from the waterside as though from very -far away, the nursemaids and perambulators seemed tinged with unreality, -the London towers were clouds, its roar the roar of waves. I saw only the -ship's deck, the grey and misty sea, the uncouth figures of the two who -leaned with him over the bulwarks. - -"Go on," I said encouragingly; "out with it!" - -"It must seem incredible to most men, but, by Gad, I swear to you, it -lifted me off my feet, and I've never known anything like it. The mind -of that great fellow got hold of me, included me. He made the inanimate -world--sea, stars, wind, woods, and mountains--seem all alive. The entire -blessed universe was conscious--and he came straight out of it to get me. -I understood things about myself I've never understood before--and always -funked rather;--especially that feeling of being out of touch with my -kind, of finding no one in the world today who speaks my language -quite--that, and the utter, God-forsaken loneliness it makes me suffer--" - -"You always have been a lonely beggar really," I said, noting the -hesitation that thus on the very threshold checked his enthusiasm, -quenching the fire in those light-blue eyes. "Tell me. I shall understand -right enough--or try to." - -"God bless you," he answered, leaping to the sympathy, "I believe you -will. There's always been this primitive, savage thing in me that keeps -others away--puts them off, and so on. I've tried to smother it a bit -sometimes--" - -"Have you?" I laughed. - -"'Tried to,' I said, because I've always been afraid of its getting out -too much and bustin' my life all to pieces:--something lonely and untamed -and sort of outcast from cities and money and all the thick suffocating -civilization of today; and I've only saved myself by getting off into -wildernesses and free places where I could give it a breathin' chance -without running the risk of being locked up as a crazy man." He laughed -as he said it, but his heart was in the words. "You know all that; -haven't I told you often enough? It's not a morbid egoism, or what their -precious academic books so stupidly call 'degenerate,' for in me it's -damned vital and terrific, and moves always to action. It's made me an -alien and--and--" - -"Something far stronger than the Call of the Wild, isn't it?" - -He fairly snorted. "Sure as we're both alive here sittin' on this sooty -London grass," he cried. "This Call of the Wild they prate about is -just the call a fellow hears to go on 'the bust' when he's had too much -town and's got bored--a call to a little bit of license and excess to -safety-valve him down. What I feel," his voice turned grave and quiet -again, "is quite a different affair. It's the call of real hunger--the -call of food. They want to let off steam, but I want to take in stuff to -prevent--starvation." He whispered the word, putting his lips close to my -face. - -A pause fell between us, which I was the first to break. - -"This is not your century! That's what you really mean," I suggested -patiently. - -"Not my century!" he caught me up, flinging handfuls of faded grass in -the air between us and watching it fall; "why, it's not even my world! -And I loathe, loathe the spirit of today with its cheap-jack inventions, -and smother of sham universal culture, its murderous superfluities and -sordid vulgarity, without enough real sense of beauty left to see that a -daisy is nearer heaven than an airship--" - -"Especially when the airship falls," I laughed. "Steady, steady, old boy; -don't spoil your righteous case by overstatement." - -"Well, well, you know what I mean," he laughed with me, though his face -at once turned earnest again, "and all that, and all that, and all -that.... And so this savagery that has burned in me all these years -unexplained, these Russian strangers made clear. I can't tell you how -because I don't know myself. The father did it--his proximity, his -silence stuffed with sympathy, his great vital personality unclipped by -contact with these little folk who left him alone. His presence alone -made me long for the earth and Nature. He seemed a living part of it -all. He was magnificent and enormous, but the devil take me if I know -how." - -"He said nothing--that referred to it directly?" - -"Nothing but what I've told you,--blundering awkwardly with those few -modern words. But he had it in him a thousand to my one. He made me feel -I was right and natural, untrue to myself to suppress it and a coward to -fear it. The speech-center in the brain, you know, is anyhow a -comparatively recent thing in evolution. They say that--" - -"It wasn't his century either," I checked him again. - -"No, and he didn't pretend it was, as I've tried to," he cried, sitting -bolt upright beside me. "The fellow was genuine, never dreamed of -compromise. D'ye see what I mean? Only somehow he'd found out where his -world and century were, and was off to take possession. And that's what -caught me. I felt it by some instinct in me stronger than all else; only -we couldn't talk about it definitely because--because--I hardly know how -to put it--for the same reason," he added suddenly, "that I can't talk -about it to you _now!_ There are no words.... What we both sought was a -state that passed away before words came into use, and is therefore -beyond intelligible description. No one spoke to them on the ship for -the same reason, I felt sure, that no one spoke to them in the whole -world--because no one could manage even the alphabet of their language. - -"And this was so strange and beautiful," he went on, "that standing -there beside him, in his splendid atmosphere, the currents of wind and -sea reached _me through him first_, filtered by his spirit so that I -assimilated them and they fed me, because he somehow stood in such close -and direct relation to Nature. I slipped into my own region, made happy -and alive, knowing at last what I wanted, though still unable to phrase -it. This modern world I've so long tried to adjust myself to became a -thing of pale remembrance and a dream...." - -"All in your mind and imagination, of course, this," I ventured, -seeing that his poetry was luring him beyond where I could follow. - -"Of course," he answered without impatience, grown suddenly thoughtful, -less excited again, "and that's why it was true. No chance of clumsy -senses deceiving one. It was direct vision. What is Reality, in the last -resort," he asked, "but the thing a man's vision brings to him--to -believe? There's no other criterion. The criticism of opposite types -of mind is merely a confession of their own limitations." - -Being myself of the "opposite type of mind," I naturally did not argue, -but suffered myself to accept his half-truth for the whole--temporarily. -I checked him from time to time merely lest he should go too fast for me -to follow what seemed a very wonderful tale of faerie. - -"So this wild thing in me the world today has beggared and denied," he -went on, swept by his Celtic enthusiasm, "woke in its full strength. -Calling to me like some flying spirit in a storm, it claimed me. The -man's being summoned me back to the earth and Nature, as it were, -automatically. I understood that look on his face, that sign in his eyes. -The 'Isles of Greece' furnished some faint clue, but as yet I knew no -more--only that he and I were in the same region and that I meant to -go with him and that he accepted me with delight that was joy. It drew -me as empty space draws a giddy man to the precipice's edge. Thoughts -from another's mind," he added by way of explanation, turning round, -"come far more completely to me when I stand in a man's atmosphere, -silent and receptive, than when by speech he tries to place them there. -Ah! And that helps me to get at what I mean, perhaps. The man, you -see, hardly thought; he _felt_." - -"As an animal, you mean? Instinctively--?" - -"In a sense, yes," he replied after a momentary hesitation. "Like some -very early, very primitive form of life." - -"With the best will in the world, Terence, I don't quite follow you--" - -"I don't quite follow myself," he cried, "because I'm trying to lead -and follow at the same time. You know that idea--I came across it -somewhere--that in ancient peoples the senses were much less specialized -than they are now; that perception came to them in general, massive -sensations rather than divided up neatly into five channels:--that they -felt all over so to speak, and that all the senses, as in an overdose of -hashish, become one single sense? The centralizing of perception in the -brain is a recent thing, and it might equally well have occurred in any -other nervous headquarters of the body, say, the solar plexus; or, -perhaps, never have been localized at all! In hysteria patients have been -known to read with the finger-tips and smell with the heel. Touch is -still all over; it's only the other four that have got fixed in definite -organs. There are systems of thought today that still would make the -solar plexus the main center, and not the brain. The word 'brain,' you -know, never once occurs in the ancient Scriptures of the world. You will -not find it in the Bible--the reins, the heart, and so forth were what -men felt with then. They felt all over--well," he concluded abruptly, "I -think this fellow was like that. D'ye see now?" - -I stared at him, greatly wondering. A nursemaid passed close, balancing a -child in a spring-perambulator, saying in a foolish voice, "Wupsey up, -wupsey down! Wupsey there!" O'Malley, in the full stream of his mood, -waited impatiently till she had gone by. Then, rolling over on his side, -he came closer, talking in a lowered tone. I think I never saw him so -deeply stirred, nor understood, perhaps, so little of the extreme -passion working in him. Yet it was incredible that he could have caught -so much from mere interviews with a semi-articulate stranger, unless -what he said was strictly true, and this Russian had positively touched -latent fires in his soul by a kind of sympathetic magic. - -"You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for -himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, -and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a -person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him. Well--I'd found mine, -that's all. I can't prove it to you with a pair of scales or a butcher's -meat-axe, but it's true." - -"And you mean his mere presence conveyed all this without speech almost?" - -"Because there _was_ no speech possible," he replied, dropping his voice -to a whisper and thrusting his face yet closer into mine. "We were -solitary survivors of a world whose language was either uncreated or"--he -italicized the word--"_forgotten_...." - -"An elaborate and detailed thought-transference, then?" - -"Why not?" he murmured. "It's one of the commonest facts of daily life." - -"And you had never fully realized it before, this loneliness and its -possible explanation--that there might exist, I mean, a way of satisfying -it--till you met this stranger?" - -He answered with deep earnestness. "Always, old man, always, but suffered -under it atrociously because I'd never understood it. I had been afraid -to face it. This man, a far bigger and less diluted example of it than -myself, made it all clear and right and natural. We belonged to the same -forgotten place and time. Under his lead and guidance I could find my -own--return...." - -I whistled a long soft whistle, looking up into the sky. Then, sitting -upright like himself, we stared hard at one another, straight in the eye. -He was too grave, too serious to trifle with. It would have been unfair -too. Besides, I loved to hear him. The way he reared such fabulous -superstructures upon slight incidents, interpreting thus his complex -being to himself, was uncommonly interesting. It was observing the -creative imagination actually at work, and the process in a sense seemed -sacred. Only the truth and actuality with which he clothed it all made -me a little uncomfortable sometimes. - -"I'll put it to you quite simply," he cried suddenly. - -"Yes, and 'quite simply' it was--?" - -"That he knew the awful spiritual loneliness of living in a world whose -tastes and interests were not his own, a world to which he was -essentially foreign, and at whose hands he suffered continual rebuff and -rejection. Advances from either side were mutually and necessarily -repelled because oil and water cannot mix. Rejected, moreover, not -merely by a family, tribe, or nation, but by a race and time--by the -whole World of Today; an outcast and an alien, a desolate survival." - -"An appalling picture!" - -"I understood it," he went on, holding up both hands by way of emphasis, -"because in miniature I had suffered the same: he was a supreme case of -what lay so deeply in myself. He was a survival of other life the modern -mind has long since agreed to exile and deny. Humanity stared at him over -a barrier, never dreaming of asking him in. Even had it done so he could -not by the law of his being have accepted. Outcast myself in some small -way, I understood his terrible loneliness, a soul without a country, -visible and external country that is. A passion of tenderness and -sympathy for him, and so also for myself, awoke. I saw him as chieftain -of all the lonely, exiled souls of life." - -Breathless a moment, he lay on his back staring at the summer -clouds--those thoughts of wind that change and pass before their meanings -can be quite seized. Similarly protean was the thought his phrases tried -to clothe. The terror, pathos, sadness of this big idea he strove to -express touched me deeply, yet never quite with the clarity of his own -conviction. - -"There _are_ such souls, _dépaysées_ and in exile," he said suddenly -again, turning over on the grass. "They _do_ exist. They walk the earth -today here and there in the bodies of ordinary men ... and their -loneliness is a loneliness that must be whispered." - -"You formed any idea what kind of--of survival?" I asked gently, for -the notion grew in me that after all these two would prove to be mere -revolutionaries in escape, political refugees, or something quite -ordinary. - -O'Malley buried his face in his hands for a moment without replying. -Presently he looked up. I remember that a streak of London black ran -from the corner of his mouth across the cheek. He pushed the hair back -from his forehead, answering in a manner grown abruptly calm and -dispassionate. - -"Don't ye see what a foolish question that is," he said quietly, "and -how impossible to satisfy, inviting that leap of invention which can be -only an imaginative lie...? I can only tell you," and the breeze brought -to us the voices of children from the Round Pond where they sailed -their ships of equally wonderful adventure, "that my own longing -became this: to go with him, to know what he knew, to live where he -lived--forever." - -"And the alarm you said you felt?" - -He hesitated. - -"That," he added, "was a kind of mistake. To go involved, I felt, an -inner catastrophe that might be Death--that it would be out of the body, -I mean, or a going backwards. In reality, it was a going forwards and a -way to Life." - - - - -VII - - -And it was just before the steamer made Naples that the jolly Captain -unwittingly helped matters forward a good deal. For it was his ambition -to include in the safe-conduct of his vessel the happy-conduct also of -his passengers. He liked to see them contented and of one accord, a big -family, and he noted--or had word brought to him perhaps--that there were -one or two whom the attitude of the majority left out in the cold. - -It may have been--O'Malley wondered without actually asking--that -the man who shared the cabin with the strangers made some appeal for -re-arrangement, but in any case Captain Burgenfelder approached the -Irishman that afternoon on the bridge and asked if he would object -to having them in his stateroom for the balance of the voyage. - -"Your present gompanion geds off at Naples," he said. "Berhaps you would -not object. I think--they seem lonely. You are friendly with them. They -go alzo to Batoum?" - -This proposal for close quarters gave him pause. He knew a moment or two -of grave hesitation, yet without time to analyze it. Then, driven by a -sudden decision of the heart that knew no revision of reason, he agreed. - -"I had better, perhaps, suggest it to see if they are willing," he said -the next minute, hedging. - -"I already ask him dat." - -"Oh, you have! And he would like it--not object, I mean?" he added, aware -of a subtle sense of half-frightened pleasure. - -"Pleased and flattered on the contrary," was the reply, as he handed him -the glasses to look at Ischia rising blue from the sea. - -O'Malley felt as though his decision was somehow an act of -self-committal, almost grave. It meant that impulsively he accepted a -friendship which concealed in its immense attraction--danger. He had -taken the plunge. - -The rush of it broke over him like a wave, setting free a tumult of very -deep emotion. He raised the glasses automatically to his eyes, but -looking through them he saw not Ischia nor the opening the Captain -explained the ship would make, heading that evening for Sicily. He saw -quite another picture that drew itself up out of himself--was thrown -up, rather, somewhat with violence, as upon a landscape of dream-scenery. -The lens of passionate yearning in himself, ever unsatisfied, focused -it against a background far, far away, in some faint distance that was -neither of space nor time, and might equally have been past as future. -Large figures he saw, shadowy yet splendid, that ran free-moving as -clouds over mighty hills, vital with the abundant strong life of a -younger world.... Yet never quite saw them, never quite overtook them, -for their speed and the manner of their motion bewildered the sight.... - -Moreover, though they evaded him in terms of physical definition he knew -a sense of curious, half-remembered familiarity. Some portion of his -hidden self, uncaught, unharnessed by anything in modern life, rose with -a passionate rush of joy and made after them--something in him untamed as -wind. His mind stood up, as it were, and shouted "I am coming." For he -saw himself not far behind, as a man, racing with great leaps to join -them ... yet never overtaking, never drawing close enough to see quite -clearly. The roar of their tramping shook the very blood in his ears.... - -His decision to accept the strangers had set free in his being something -that thus for the first time in his life--escaped.... Symbolically -in his mind this Escape had taken picture form.... - -The Captain's voice was asking for the glasses; with a wrench that -caused almost actual physical pain he tore himself away, letting this -herd of Flying Thoughts sink back into the shadows and disappear. With -sharp regret he saw them go--a regret for long, long, far-off things.... - -Turning, he placed the field-glasses carefully in that fat open hand -stretched out to receive them, and noted as he did so the thick, pink -fingers that closed about the strap, the heavy ring of gold, the band of -gilt about the sleeve. That wrought gold, those fleshy fingers, the -genial gutteral voice saying "T'anks" were symbols of an existence tamed -and artificial that caged him in again.... - -Then he went below and found that the lazy "drummer" who talked -harvest-machines to puzzled peasants had landed, and in his place an -assortment of indiscriminate clothing belonging to the big Russian and -his son lay scattered over the upper berth and upon the sofa-bed beneath -the port-hole. - - - - -VIII - -"For my own part I find in some of these abnormal or supernormal facts -the strongest suggestions in favor of a superior consciousness being -possible. I doubt whether we shall ever understand some of them without -using the very letter of Fechner's conception of a great reservoir in -which the memories of earth's inhabitants are pooled and preserved, and -from which, when the threshold lowers or the valve opens, information -ordinarily shut out leaks into the mind of exceptional individuals among -us." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - - -And it was some hours later, while the ship made for the open sea, that -he told Dr. Stahl casually of the new arrangement and saw the change come -so suddenly across his face. Stahl stood back from the compass-box -whereon they leaned, and putting a hand upon his companion's shoulder, -looked a moment into his eyes. With surprise O'Malley noted that the pose -of cynical disbelief was gone; in its place was sympathy, interest, -kindness. The words he spoke came from his heart. - -"Is that true?" he asked, as though the news disturbed him. - -"Of course. Why not? Is there anything wrong?" He felt uneasy. The -doctor's manner confirmed the sense that he had done a rash thing. -Instantly the barrier between the two crumbled and he lost the first -feeling of resentment that his friends should be analyzed. The men thus -came together in unhindered sincerity. - -"Only," said the doctor thoughtfully, half gravely, "that--I may have -done you a wrong, placed you, that is, in a position of--" he hesitated -an instant,--"of difficulty. It was I who suggested the change." - -O'Malley stared at him. - -"I don't understand you quite." - -"It is this," continued the other, still holding him with his eyes. He -said it deliberately. "I have known you for some time, formed-er--an -opinion of your type of mind and being--a very rare and curious one, -interesting me deeply--" - -"I wasn't aware you'd had me under the microscope," O'Malley laughed, but -restlessly. - -"Though you felt it and resented it--justly, I may say--to the point of -sometimes avoiding me--" - -"As doctor, scientist," put in O'Malley, while the other, ignoring the -interruption, continued in German:-- - -"I always had the secret hope, as 'doctor and scientist,' let us put it -then, that I might one day see you in circumstances that should bring -out certain latent characteristics I thought I divined in you. I wished -to observe you--your psychical being--under the stress of certain -temptations, favorable to these characteristics. Our brief voyages -together, though they have so kindly ripened our acquaintance into -friendship"--he put his hand again on the other's shoulder smiling, -while O'Malley replied with a little nod of agreement--"have, of course, -never provided the opportunity I refer to--" - -"Ah--!" - -"Until now!" the doctor added. "Until now." - -Puzzled and interested the Irishman waited for him to go on, but the -man of science, who was now a ship's doctor, hesitated. He found it -difficult, apparently, to say what was in his thoughts. - -"You refer, of course, though I hardly follow you quite--to our big -friends?" O'Malley helped him. - -The adjective slipped out before he was aware of it. His companion's -expression admitted the accuracy of the remark. "You also see them--big, -then?" he said, quickly taking him up. He was not cross-questioning; -out of keen sympathetic interest he asked it. - -"Sometimes, yes," the Irishman answered, more astonished. "Sometimes -only--" - -"Exactly. Bigger than they really are; as though at times they gave -out--emanated--something that extended their appearance. Is that it?" - -O'Malley, his confidence wholly won, more surprised, too, than he quite -understood, seized Stahl by the arm and drew him toward the rails. They -leaned over, watching the sea. A passenger, pacing the decks before -dinner, passed close behind them. - -"But, doctor," he said in a hushed tone as soon as the steps had died -away, "you are saying things that I thought were half in my imagination -only, not true in the ordinary sense quite--your sense, I mean?" - -For some moments the doctor made no reply. In his eyes a curious -steady gaze replaced the usual twinkle. When at length he spoke it was -evidently following a train of thought of his own, playing round a -subject he seemed half ashamed of and yet desired to state with direct -language. - -"A being akin to yourself," he said in low tones, "only developed, -enormously developed; a Master in your own peculiar region, and a man -whose influence acting upon you at close quarters could not fail to -arouse the latent mind-storms"--he chose the word hesitatingly, as -though seeking for a better he could not find on the moment,--"always -brewing in you just below the horizon." - -He turned and watched his companion's face keenly. O'Malley was too -impressed to feel annoyance. - -"Well--?" he asked, feeling the adventure closing round him with quite a -new sense of reality. "Well?" he repeated louder. "Please go on. I'm not -offended, only uncommonly interested. You leave me in a fog, so far. I -think you owe me more than hints." - -"I do," said the other simply. "About that man is a singular quality -too rare for language to have yet coined its precise description: -something that is essentially"--they had lapsed into German now, and he -used the German word--"_unheimlich_." - -The Irishman started. He recognized this for truth. At the same time -the old resentment stirred a little in him, creeping into his reply. - -"You have studied him closely then--had him, too, under the microscope? -In this short time?" - -This time the answer did not surprise him, however. - -"My friend," he heard, while the other turned from him and gazed out over -the misty sea, "I have not been a ship's doctor--always. I am one now -only because the leisure and quiet give me the opportunity to finish -certain work, recording work. For years I was in the H----"--he mentioned -the German equivalent for the Salpêtrière--"years of research and -investigation into the astonishing vagaries of the human mind and -spirit--with certain results, followed later privately, that it is now my -work to record. And among many cases that might well seem--er--beyond -either credence or explanation,"--he hesitated again slightly--"I came -across one, one in a million, let us admit, that an entire section of my -work deals with under the generic term of _Urmenschen_." - -"Primitive men," O'Malley snapped him up, translating. Through his -growing bewilderment ran also a growing uneasiness shot strangely -with delight. Intuitively he divined what was coming. - -"Beings," the doctor corrected him, "not men. The prefix _Ur-_, moreover, -I use in a deeper sense than is usually attached to it as in _Urwald_, -_Urwelt_, and the like. An _Urmensch_ in the world today must suggest a -survival of an almost incredible kind--a kind, too, utterly inadmissible -and inexplicable to the materialist perhaps--" - -"Paganistic?" interrupted the other sharply, joy and fright rising over -him. - -"Older, older by far," was the rejoinder, given with a curious hush and a -lowering of the voice. - -The suggestion rushed into full possession of O'Malley's mind. There rose -in him something that claimed for his companions the sea, the wind, the -stars--tumultuous and terrific. But he said nothing. The conception, -blown into him thus for the first time at full strength, took all his -life into its keeping. No energy was left over for mere words. The -doctor, he was aware, was looking at him, the passion of discovery and -belief in his eyes. His manner kindled. It was the hidden Stahl emerging. - -"... a type, let me put it," he went on in a voice whose very steadiness -thrilled his listener afresh, "that in its strongest development would -experience in the world today the loneliness of a complete and absolute -exile. A return to humanity, you see, of some unexpended power of -mythological values...." - -"Doctor...!" - -The shudder passed through him and away almost as soon as it came. Again -the sea grew splendid, the thunder of the waves held voices calling, and -the foam framed shapes and faces, wildly seductive, though fugitive as -dreams. The words he had heard moved him profoundly. He remembered how -the presence of the stranger had turned the world alive. - -He knew what was coming, too, and gave the lead direct, while yet -half afraid to ask the question. - -"So my friend--this big 'Russian'--?" - -"I have known before, yes, and carefully studied." - - - - -IX - -"Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much -transcending Intelligence and Will as these transcend mechanical -motion?" - ---HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_ - - -The two men left the rail and walked arm in arm along the deserted deck, -speaking in lowered voices. - -"He came first to us, brought by the keeper of an obscure hotel where he -was staying, as a case of lapse of memory--loss of memory, I should say, -for it was complete. He was unable to say who he was, whence he came, or -to whom he belonged. Of his land or people we could learn nothing. His -antecedents were an utter blank. Speech he had practically none of his -own--nothing but the merest smattering of many tongues, a word here, a -word there. Utterance, indeed, of any kind was exceedingly difficult to -him. For years, evidently, he had wandered over the world, companionless -among men, seeking his own, finding no place where to lay his head. -People, it seemed, both men and women, kept him at arm's-length, feeling -afraid; the keeper of the little hotel was clearly terrified. This -quality he had that I mentioned just now, repelled human beings--even in -the Hospital it was noticeable--and placed him in the midst of humanity -thus absolutely alone. It is a quality more rare than"--hesitating, -searching for a word--"purity, one almost extinct today, one that I have -never before or since come across in any other being--hardly ever, that -is to say," he qualified the sentence, glancing significantly at his -companion. - -"And the boy?" O'Malley asked quickly, anxious to avoid any discussion -of himself. - -"There was no boy then. He has found him since. He may find others -too--possibly!" The Irishman drew his arm out, edging away imperceptibly. -That shiver of joy reached him from the air and sea, perhaps. - -"And two years ago," continued Dr. Stahl, as if nothing had happened, -"he was discharged, harmless"--he lingered a moment on the word, "if not -cured. He was to report to us every six months. He has never done so." - -"You think he remembers you?" - -"No. It is quite clear that he has lapsed back completely again into -the--er--state whence he came to us, that unknown world where he -passed his youth with others of his kind, but of which he has been able -to reveal no single detail to us, nor we to trace the slightest clue." - -They stopped beneath the covered portion of the deck, for the mist -had now turned to rain. They leaned against the smoking-room outer -wall. In O'Malley's mind the thoughts and feelings plunged and reared. -Only with difficulty did he control himself. - -"And this man, you think," he asked with outward calmness, "is of--of -my kind?" - -"'Akin,' I said. I suggest--" But O'Malley cut him short. - -"So that you engineered our sharing a cabin with a view to putting -him again--putting us both--under the microscope?" - -"My scientific interest was very strong," Dr. Stahl replied carefully. -"But it is not too late to change. I offer you a bed in my own roomy -cabin on the promenade deck. Also, I ask your forgiveness." - -The Irishman, large though his imaginative creed was, felt oddly checked, -baffled, stupefied by what he had heard. He knew perfectly well what -Stahl was driving at, and that revelations of another kind were yet -to follow. What bereft him of very definite speech was this new fact -slowly awakening in his consciousness which hypnotized him, as it were, -with its grandeur. It seemed to portend that his own primitive yearnings, -so-called, grew out of far deeper foundations than he had yet dreamed -of even. Stahl, should he choose to listen, meant to give him -explanation, quasi-scientific explanation. This talk about a survival of -"unexpended mythological values" carried him off his feet. He knew it was -true. Veiled behind that carefully chosen phrase was something more--a -truth brilliantly discovered. He knew, too, that it bit at the -platform-boards upon which his personality, his sanity, his very life, -perhaps, rested--his modern life. - -"I forgive you, Dr. Stahl," he heard himself saying with a deceptive -calmness of voice as they stood shoulder to shoulder in that dark corner, -"for there is really nothing to forgive. The characteristics of these -_Urmenschen_ you describe attract me very greatly. Your words merely give -my imagination a letter of introduction to my reason. They burrow -among the foundations of my life and being. At least--you have done -me no wrong...." He knew the words were wild, impulsive, yet he could -find no better. Above all things he wished to conceal his rising, grand -delight. - -"I thank you," Stahl said simply, yet with a certain confusion. "I--felt -I owed you this explanation--er--this confession." - -"You wished to warn me?" - -"I wished to say 'Be careful' rather. I say it now--Be careful! I give -you this invitation to share my cabin for the remainder of the voyage, -and I urge you to accept it." The offer was from the heart, while the -scientific interest in the man obviously half hoped for a refusal. - -"You think harm might come to me?" - -"Not physically. The man is gentle and safe in every way." - -"But there _is_ danger--in your opinion?" insisted the other. - -"There _is_ danger--" - -"That his influence may make me as himself--an _Urmensch_?" - -"That he may--get you," was the curious answer, given steadily after -a moment's pause. - -Again the words thrilled O'Malley to the core of his delighted, -half-frightened soul. "You really mean that?" he asked again; "as 'doctor -and scientist,' you mean it?" - -Stahl replied with a solemn anxiety in eyes and voice. "I mean that you -have in yourself that 'quality' which makes the proximity of this 'being' -dangerous: in a word that he may take you--er--with him." - -"Conversion?" - -"Appropriation." - -They moved further up the deck together for some minutes in silence, but -the Irishman's feelings, irritated by the man's prolonged evasion, -reached a degree of impatience that was almost anger. "Let us be more -definite," he exclaimed at length a trifle hotly. "You mean that I might -go insane?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense," came the answer without a sign of annoyance -or hesitation; "but that something might happen to you--something that -science could not recognize and medical science could not treat--" - -Then O'Malley interrupted him with the vital question that rushed -out before he could consider its wisdom or legitimacy. - -"Then what really is he--this man, this 'being' whom you call a -'survival,' and who makes you fear for my safety. Tell me _exactly_ what -he is?" - -They found themselves just then by the doctor's cabin, and Stahl, -pushing the door open, led him in. Taking the sofa for himself, he -pointed to an armchair opposite. - - - - -X - -"Superstition is outside reason; so is revelation." - ---OLD SAYING - - -And O'Malley understood that he had pressed the doctor to the verge of -confessing some belief that he was ashamed to utter or to hold, something -forced upon him by his out-of-the-way experience of life to which his -scientific training said peremptorily "No." Further, that he watched him -keenly all the time, noting the effect his words produced. - -"He is not a human being at all," he continued with a queer thin whisper -that conveyed a gravity of conviction singularly impressive, "in the -sense in which you and I are accustomed to use the term. His inner being -is not shaped, as his outer body, upon quite--human lines. He is a Cosmic -Being--a direct expression of cosmic life. A little bit, a fragment, of -the Soul of the World, and in that sense a survival--a survival of her -youth." - -The Irishman, as he listened to these utterly unexpected words, felt -something rise within him that threatened to tear him asunder. Whether -it was joy or terror, or compounded strangely of the two, he could not -tell. It seemed as if he stood upon the edge of hearing something--spoken -by a man who was no mere dreamer like himself--that would explain the -world, himself, and all his wildest cravings. He both longed and feared -to hear it. In his hidden and most secret thoughts, those thoughts he -never uttered to another, this deep belief in the Earth as a conscious, -sentient, living Being had persisted in spite of all the forces education -and modern life had turned against it. It seemed in him an undying -instinct, an unmovable conviction, though he hardly dared acknowledge it -even to himself. - -He had always "dreamed" the Earth alive, a mothering organism to -humanity; and himself, _via_ his love of Nature, in some sweet close -relation to her that other men had forgotten or ignored. Now, therefore, -to hear Stahl talk of Cosmic Beings, fragments of the Soul of the World, -and "survivals of her early life" was like hearing a great shout of -command to his soul to come forth and share it in complete -acknowledgment. - -He bit his lips, pinched himself, stared. Then he took the black cigar he -was aware was being handed to him, lit it with fingers that trembled -absurdly, and smoked as hard as though his sanity depended on his -finishing it in a prescribed time. Great clouds rose before his face. But -his soul within him came up with a flaming rush of speed, shouting, -singing.... - -There was enough ash to knock off into the bronze tray beside him before -either said a word. He watched the little operation as closely as though -he were aiming a rifle. The ash, he saw, broke firmly. "This must be a -really good cigar," he thought to himself, for as yet he had not been -conscious of tasting it. The ash-tray, he also saw, was a kind of nymph, -her spread drapery forming the receptacle. "I must get one of those," he -thought. "I wonder what they cost." Then he puffed violently again. The -doctor had risen and was pacing the cabin floor slowly over by the red -curtain that concealed the bunk. O'Malley absent-mindedly watched -him, and as he did so the words he had heard kept on roaring at the -back of his mind. - -And then, while silence still held the room,--swift, too, as a second -although it takes time to write--flashed through him a memory of Fechner, -the German philosopher who held that the Universe was everywhere -consciously alive, and that the Earth was the body of a living Entity, -and that the World-Soul or Cosmic Consciousness is something more than a -picturesque dream of the ancients.... - -The doctor came to anchor again on the sofa opposite. To his great relief -he was the first to break the silence, for O'Malley simply did not know -how or where to begin. - -"We know today--_you_ certainly know for I've read it accurately -described in your books--that the human personality can extend itself -under certain conditions called abnormal. It can project portions of -itself, show itself even at a distance, operate away from the central -covering body. In exactly similar fashion may the Being of the Earth -have projected portions of herself in the past. Of such great powers or -beings there may be conceivably a survival ... a survival of a hugely -remote period when her Consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in -shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing -humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a -flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all -sorts and kinds...." - -And then, suddenly, as though he had been deliberately giving his -imagination rein yet now regretted it, his voice altered, his manner -assumed a shade of something colder. He shifted the key, as though to -another aspect of his belief. The man was talking swiftly of his -experiences in the big and private hospitals. He was describing _the_ -very belief to which he had first found himself driven--the belief that -had opened the door to so much more. So far as O'Malley could follow it -in his curiously excited condition of mind, it was little more or less -than a belief he himself had often played lovingly with--the theory that -a man has a fluid or etheric counterpart of himself which is obedient to -strong desire and can, under certain conditions, be detached--projected -in a shape dictated by that desire. - -He only realized this fully later perhaps, for the doctor used a -phraseology of his own. Stahl was telling calmly how he had been driven -to some such belief by the facts that had come under his notice both -in the asylums and in his private practice. - -"...That in the amazingly complex personality of a human being," he went -on, "there does exist some vital constituent, a part of consciousness, -that can leave the body for a short time without involving death; that it -is something occasionally visible to others; something malleable by -thought and desire--especially by intense and prolonged yearning; and -that it can even bring relief to its owner by satisfying in some -subjective fashion the very yearnings that drew it forth." - -"Doctor! You mean the 'astral'?" - -"There is no name I know of. I can give it none. I mean in other words -that it can create the conditions for such satisfaction--dream-like, -perhaps, yet intense and seemingly very real at the time. Great emotion, -for instance, drives it forth, explaining thus appearances at a distance, -and a hundred other phenomena that my investigations of abnormal -personality have forced me to recognize as true. And nostalgia often is -the means of egress, the channel along which all the inner forces and -desires of the heart stream elsewhere toward their fulfillment in some -person, place, or _dream_." - -Stahl was giving himself his head, talking freely of beliefs that rarely -found utterance. Clearly it was a relief to him to do so--to let himself -be carried away. There was, after all, the poet in him side by side with -the observer and analyst, and the fundamental contradiction in his -character stood most interestingly revealed. O'Malley listened, half in a -dream, wondering what this had to do with the Cosmic Life just mentioned. - -"Moreover, the appearance, the aspect of this etheric Double, molded -thus by thought, longing, and desire, corresponds to such thought, -longing, and desire. Its shape, when visible shape is assumed, may be -various--very various. The form might conceivably be _felt_, discerned -clairvoyantly as an emanation rather than actually seen," he continued. - -Then he added, looking closely at his companion, "and in your own case -this Double--it has always seemed to me--may be peculiarly easy of -detachment from the rest of you." - -"I certainly create my own world and slip into it--to some extent," -murmured the Irishman, absorbingly interested; "--reverie and so forth; -partially, at any rate." - -"'Partially,' yes, in your reveries of waking consciousness," Stahl took -him up, "but in sleep--in the trance consciousness--completely! And -therein lies your danger," he added gravely; "for to pass out completely -in _waking_ consciousness, is the next step--an easy one; and it -constitutes, not so much a disorder of your being, as a readjustment, but -a readjustment difficult of sane control." He paused again. "You pass out -while fully awake--a waking delusion. It is usually labeled--though in my -opinion wrongly so--insanity." - -"I'm not afraid of that," O'Malley laughed, almost nettled. "I can manage -myself all right--have done so far, at any rate." - -It was curious how the rôles had shifted. O'Malley it was now who checked -and criticized. - -"I suggest caution," was the reply, made earnestly. "I suggest caution." - -"I should keep your warnings for mediums, clairvoyants, and the like," -said the other tartly. He was half amazed, half alarmed even while he -said it. It was the personal application that annoyed him. "They are -rather apt to go off their heads, I believe." - -Dr. Stahl rose and stood before him as though the words had given -him a cue he wanted. "From that very medium-class," he said, "my most -suggestive 'cases' have come, though not for one moment do I think of -including you with them. Yet these very 'cases' have been due one and -all to the same cause--the singular disorder I have just mentioned." - -They stared at one another a moment in silence. Stahl, whether O'Malley -liked it or no, was impressive. He gazed at the little figure in front of -him, the ragged untidy beard, the light shining on the bald skull, -wondering what was coming next and what all this bewildering confession -of unorthodox belief was leading up to. He longed to hear more about that -hinted Cosmic Life ... and how yearning might lead to its realization. - -"For any phenomena of the séance-room that may be genuine," he heard him -saying, "are produced by this fluid, detachable portion of the -personality, the very thing we have been speaking about. They are -projections of the personality--automatic projections of the -consciousness." - -And then, like a clap of thunder upon his bewildered mind, came this -man's amazing ultimatum, linking together all the points touched upon and -bringing them to a head. He repeated it emphatically. - -"And in similar fashion," concluded the calm, dispassionate voice -beside him, "there have been projections of the Earth's great -consciousness--direct expressions of her cosmic life--Cosmic Beings. And -of these distant and primitive manifestations, it is conceivable that -one or two may still--here and there in places humanity has never -stained--actually survive. This man is one of them." - -He turned on the two electric lights behind him with an admirable air of -finality. The extraordinary talk was at an end. He moved about the cabin, -putting chairs straight and toying with the papers on his desk. -Occasionally he threw a swift and searching glance at his companion, -like a man who wished to note the effect of an attack. - -For, indeed, this was the impression that his listener retained above -all else. This flood of wild, unorthodox, speculative ideas had been -poured upon him helter-skelter with a purpose. And the abruptness of -the climax was cleverly planned to induce impulsive, hot confession. - -But O'Malley found no words. He sat there in his armchair, passing -his fingers through his tumbled hair. His inner turmoil was too much -for speech or questions ... and presently, when the gong for dinner -rang noisily outside the cabin door, he rose abruptly and went out -without a single word. Stahl turned to see him go. He merely nodded -with a little smile. - -But he did not go to his stateroom. He walked the deck alone for a -time, and when he reached the dining room, Stahl, he saw, had already -come and gone. Halfway down the table, diagonally across, the face of -the big Russian looked up occasionally at him and smiled, and every -time he did so the Irishman felt a sense of mingled alarm and wonder -greater than anything he had ever known in his life before. One of the -great doors of life again had opened. The barriers of his heart broke -away. He was no longer caged and manacled within the prison of a puny -individuality. The world that so distressed him faded. The people in it -were dolls. The fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the tourists and the -rest were mere automatic puppets, all made to scale--petty scale, -amazingly dull, all exactly alike--tiny, unreal, half alive. - -The ship, meanwhile, he reflected with a joy that was passion, was -being borne over the blue sea, and this sea lay spread upon the curved -breast of the round and spinning earth. He, too, and the big Russian -lay upon her breast, held close by gravity so-called, caught closer -still, though, by something else besides. And his longings increased with -his understanding. Stahl, wittingly or unwittingly, had given them an -immense push forwards. - - - - -XI - -"In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is -awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual -exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. According to -this, consciousness can be localized in time and space." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -The offer of the cabin, meanwhile, remained open. In the solitude that -O'Malley found necessary that evening he toyed with it, though knowing -that he would never really accept. - -Like a true Celt his imagination took the main body of Stahl's words and -ensouled them with his own vivid temperament. There stirred in him this -nameless and disquieting joy that wrought for itself a Body from material -just beyond his thoughts--that region of enormous experience that ever -fringes the consciousness of imaginative men. He took the picture at its -face value, took it inside with his own thoughts, delighted in it, raised -it, of course, very soon to a still higher scale. If he criticized at all -it was with phrases like "The man's a poet after all! Why, he's got -creative imagination!" To find his own intuitions endorsed, even half -explained, by a mind of opposite type was a new experience. It emphasized -amazingly the reality of that inner world he lived in. - -This explanation of the big Russian's effect upon himself was terrific, -and that a "doctor" should have conceived it, glorious. That some -portion of a man's spirit might assume the shape of his thoughts and -project itself visibly seemed likely enough. Indeed, to him, it seemed -already a "fact," and his temperament did not linger over it. But that -other suggestion fairly savaged him with its strange grandeur. He played -lovingly with it. - -That the Earth was a living being was a conception divine in size as in -simplicity, and that the Gods and mythological figures had been -projections of her consciousness--this thought ran with a magnificent -new thunder about his mind. It was overwhelming, beautiful as Heaven -and as gracious. He saw the ancient shapes of myth and legend still alive -in some gorgeous garden of the primal world, a corner too remote for -humanity to have yet stained it with their trail of uglier life. He -understood in quite a new way, at last, those deep primitive longings -that hitherto had vainly craved their full acknowledgment. It meant that -he lay so close to the Earth that he felt her pulses as his own. The idea -stormed his belief. - -It was the Soul of the Earth herself that all these years had been -calling to him. - -And while he let his imagination play with the soaring beauty of the -idea, he remembered certain odd little facts. He marshaled them before -him in a row and questioned them: The picture he had seen with the -Captain's glasses--those speeding shapes of beauty; the new aspect of -a living Nature that the Russian's presence stirred in him; the man's -broken words as they had leaned above the sea in the dusk; the curious -passion that leaped to his eyes when certain chance words had touched -him at the dinner-table. And, lastly, the singular impression of giant -bulk he produced sometimes upon the mind, almost as though a portion of -him--this detachable portion molded by the quality of his spirit as he -felt himself to be--emerged visibly to cause it. - -Vaguely, in this way, O'Malley divined how inevitable was the apparent -isolation of these two, and why others instinctively avoided them. They -seemed by themselves in an enclosure where the parent lumberingly, and -the boy defiantly, disported themselves with a kind of lonely majesty -that forbade approach. - -And it was later that same night, as the steamer approached the Lipari -Islands, that the drive forward he had received from the doctor's words -was increased by a succession of singular occurrences. At the same time, -Stahl's deliberate and as he deemed it unjustifiable interference, helped -him to make up his mind decisively on certain other points. - -The first "occurrence" was of the same order as the "bigness"-- -extraordinarily difficult, that is, to confirm by actual measurement. - -It was ten o'clock, Stahl still apparently in his cabin by himself, and -most of the passengers below at an impromptu concert, when the Irishman, -coming down from his long solitude, caught sight of the Russian and his -boy moving about the dark after-deck with a speed and vigor that -instantly arrested his attention. The suggestion of size, and of rapidity -of movement, had never been more marked. It was as though a cloud of the -summer darkness moved beside them. - -Then, going cautiously nearer, he saw that they were neither walking -quickly, nor running, as he had first supposed, but--to his -amazement--were standing side by side upon the deck--stock still. The -appearance of motion, however, was not entirely a delusion, for he next -saw that, while standing there steady as the mast and life-boats behind -them, something emanated shadow-like from both their persons and seemed -to hover and play about them--something that was only approximately -of their own outer shapes, and very considerably larger. Now it veiled -them, now left them clear. He thought of smoke-clouds moving to and -fro about dark statues. - -So far as he could focus his sight upon them, these "shadows," without -any light to cast them, moved in distorted guise there on the deck with a -motion that was somehow rhythmical--a great movement as of dance or -gambol. - -As with the appearance of "bigness," he perceived it first out of the -corner of his eye. When he looked again he saw only two dark figures, -motionless. - -He experienced the sensation a man sometimes knows on entering a deserted -chamber in the nighttime, and is aware that the things in it have just -that instant--stopped. His arrival puts abrupt end to some busy activity -they were engaged in, which begins again the moment he goes. Chairs, -tables, cupboards, the very spots and patterns of the wall have just -flown back to their usual places whence they watch impatiently for his -departure--with the candle. - -This time, on a deck instead of in a room, O'Malley with his candle had -surprised them in the act: people, moreover, not furniture. And this -shadowy gambol, this silent Dance of the Emanations, immense yet -graceful, made him think of Winds flying, visible and uncloaked, -somewhere across long hills, or of Clouds passing to a stately, elemental -measure over the blue dancing-halls of an open sky. His imagery was -confused and gigantic, yet very splendid. Again he recalled the pictured -shapes seen with his mind's eye through the Captain's glasses. And as -he watched, he felt in himself what he called "the wild, tearing instinct -to run and join them," more even--that by rights he ought to have -been there from the beginning--dancing with them--indulging a natural and -instinctive and rhythmical movement that he had somehow forgotten. - -The passion in him was very strong, very urgent, it seems, for he took -a step forward, a call of some kind rose in his throat, and in another -second he would have been similarly cavorting upon the deck, when he -felt his arm clutched suddenly with vigor from behind. Some one seized -him and held him back. A German voice spoke with a guttural whisper -in his ear. - -Dr. Stahl, crouching and visibly excited, drew him forward a little. -"Hold up!" he heard whispered--for their India rubber soles slithered -on the wet decks. "We shall see from here, eh? See something at last?" -He still whispered. O'Malley's sudden anger died down. He could not -give vent to it without making noise, for one thing, and above all else -he wished to--see. He merely felt a vague wonder how long Stahl had -been watching. - -They crouched behind the lee of a boat. The outline of the ship rose, -distinctly visible against the starry sky, masts, spars, and cordage. A -faint gleam came through the glass below the compass-box. The wheel and -the heaps of coiled rope beyond rose and fell with the motion of the -vessel, now against the stars, now black against the phosphorescent foam -that trailed along the sea like shining lace. But the human figures, he -next saw, were now doing nothing, not even pacing the deck; they were -no longer of unusual size either. Quietly leaning over the rail, father -and son side by side, they were guiltless of anything more uncommon -than gazing into the sea. Like the furniture, they had just--stopped! - -Dr. Stahl and his companion waited motionless for several minutes in -silence. There was no sound but the dull thunder of the screws, and -a faint windy whistle the ship's speed made in the rigging. The -passengers were all below. Then, suddenly, a burst of music came up as -some one opened a saloon port-hole and as quickly closed it again--a -tenor voice singing to the piano some trivial modern song with a trashy -sentimental lilt. It was--in this setting of sea and sky--painful; -O'Malley caught himself thinking of a barrel-organ in a Greek temple. - -The same instant father and son, as though startled, moved slowly away -down the deck into the further darkness, and Dr. Stahl tightened his grip -of the Irishman's arm with a force that almost made him cry out. A gleam -of light from the opened port-hole had fallen about them before they -moved. Quite clearly it revealed them bending busily over, heads close -together, necks and shoulders thrust forward and down a little. - -"Look, by God!" whispered Stahl hoarsely as they moved off. "There's -a third!" - -He pointed. Where the two had been standing something, indeed, still -remained. Concealed hitherto by their bulk, this other figure had been -left. They saw its large, dim outline. It moved. Apparently it began -to climb over the rails, or to move in some way just outside them, -hanging half above the sea. There was a free, swaying movement about -it, not ungainly so much as big--very big. - -"Now, quick!" whispered the doctor excited, in English; "this time I find -out, sure!" - -He made a violent movement forward, a pocket electric lamp in his hand, -then turned angrily, furiously, to find that O'Malley held him fast. -There was a most unseemly struggle--for a minute, and it was caused by -the younger man's sudden passionate instinct to protect his own from -discovery, if not from actual capture and destruction. - -Stahl fought in vain, being easily overmatched; he swore vehement German -oaths under his breath; and the pocket-lamp, of course unlighted, fell -and rattled over the deck, sliding with the gentle roll of the steamer to -leeward. But O'Malley's eyes, even while he struggled, never for one -instant left the spot where the figure and the "movement" had been; and -it seemed to him that when the bulwarks dipped against the dark of the -sea, the moving thing completed its efforts and passed into the waves -with a swift leap. When the vessel righted herself again the outline of -the rail was clear. - -Dr. Stahl, he then saw, had picked up the lamp and was bending over -some mark upon the deck, examining a wide splash of wet upon which -he directed the electric flash. The sense of revived antagonism between -the men for the moment was strong, too strong for speech. O'Malley -feeling half ashamed, yet realized that his action had been instinctive, -and that another time he would do just the same. He would fight to the -death any too close inspection, since such inspection included also -now--himself. - -The doctor presently looked up. His eyes shone keenly in the gleam -of the lamp, but he was no longer agitated. - -"There is too much water," he said calmly, as though diagnosing a case; -"too much to permit of definite traces." He glanced round, flashing the -beam about the decks. The other two had disappeared. They were alone. "It -was outside the rail all the time, you see," he added, "and never quite -reached the decks." He stooped down and examined the splash once more. It -looked as though a wave had topped the scuppers and left a running line -of foam and water. "Nothing to indicate its exact nature," he said in a -whisper that conveyed something between uneasiness and awe, again turning -the light sharply in every direction and peering about him. "It came to -them--er--from the sea, though; it came from the sea right enough. That, -at least, is positive." And in his manner was perhaps just a touch to -indicate relief. - -"And it returned into the sea," exclaimed O'Malley triumphantly. It -was as though he related his own escape. - -The two men were now standing upright, facing one another. Dr. Stahl, -betraying no sign of resentment, looked him steadily in the eye. He put -the lamp back into his pocket. When he spoke at length in the darkness, -the words were not precisely what the Irishman had expected. Under them -his own vexation and excitement faded instantly. He felt almost sheepish -when he remembered his violence. - -"I forgive your behavior, of course," Stahl said, "for it is -consistent--splendidly consistent--with my theory of you; and of value, -therefore. I only now urge you again"--he moved closer, speaking almost -solemnly--"to accept the offer of a berth in my cabin. Take it, my -friend, take it--tonight." - -"Because you wish to watch me at close quarters." - -"No," was the reply, and there was sympathy in the voice, "but because -you are in danger--especially in sleep." - -There was a moment's pause before O'Malley said anything. - -"It is kind of you, Dr. Stahl, very kind," he answered slowly, and this -time with grave politeness; "but I am not afraid, and I see no reason to -make the change. And as it's now late," he added somewhat abruptly, -almost as though he feared he might be persuaded to alter his mind, "I -will say good-night and turn in--if you will forgive me--at once." - -Dr. Stahl said no further word. He watched him, the other was aware, as -he moved down the deck toward the saloon staircase, and then turned once -more with his lamp to stoop over the splashed portion of the boards. He -examined the place apparently for a long time. - -But O'Malley, as he went slowly down the hot and stuffy stairs, realized -with a wild and rushing tumult of joy that the "third" he had seen was of -a splendor surpassing the little figures of men, and that something deep -within his own soul was most gloriously akin with it. A link with the -Universe had been subconsciously established, tightened up, adjusted. -From all this living Nature breathing about him in the night, a message -had reached the strangers and himself--a message shaped in beauty and in -power. Nature had become at last aware of his presence close against her -ancient face. Henceforth would every sight of Beauty take him direct to -the place where Beauty comes from. No middleman, no Art was necessary. -The gates were opening. Already he had caught a glimpse. - - - - -XII - -In the stateroom he found, without surprise somehow, that his new -companions had already retired for the night. The curtain of the upper -berth was drawn, and on the sofa-bed below the opened port-hole the -boy already slept. Standing a moment in the little room with these two -close, he felt that he had come into a new existence almost. Deep within -him this sense of new life thrilled and glowed. He was shaking a little -all over, not with the mere tremor of excitement, however, but with the -tide of a vast and rising exultation he could scarce contain. For his -normal self was too small to hold it. It demanded expansion, and the -expansion it claimed had already begun. The boundaries of his personality -were enormously extending. - -In words this change escaped him wholly. He only knew that something -in him of an old unrest lay down at length and slept. Less acute grew -those pangs of starvation his life had ever felt--the ache of that -inappeasable hunger for the beauty and innocence of some primal state -before thick human crowds had stained the world with all their strife -and clamor. The glory of it burned white within him. - -And the way he described it to himself was significant of its true -nature. For it vans the analogy of childhood. The passion of a boy's -longing swept over him. He knew again the feelings of those early days -when-- - -A boy's will is the wind's will, -And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, - ---when all the world smells sweet and golden as a summer's day, and a -village street is endless as the sky.... - -This it was, raised to its highest power, that dropped a hint of -explanation into that queer heart of his wherein had ever burned the -strange desire for primitive existence. It was the Call, though, not of -his own youth alone, but of the youth of the world. A mood of the Earth's -consciousness--some giant expression of her cosmic emotion--caught -him. And it was the big Russian who acted as channel and interpreter. - -Before getting into bed, he drew aside the little red curtain that -screened his companion, and peered cautiously through the narrow slit. -The big occupant of the bunk also slept, his mane-like hair spread about -him over the pillow, and on his great, placid face a look of peace that -seemed to deepen with every day the steamer neared her destination. -O'Malley gazed for a full minute and more. Then the sleeper felt the -gaze, for suddenly the eyelids quivered, moved, and lifted. The large -brown eyes peered straight into his own. The Irishman, unable to turn -away in time, stood fixed and staring in return. The gentleness and power -of the look passed straight down into his heart, filled him to the brim -with things their owner knew, and confirmed that appeasement of his -own hunger, already begun. - -"I tried--to prevent the--interference," he stammered in a low voice. -"I held him back. You saw me?" - -A huge hand stretched forth from the bunk to stop him. Impulsively he -seized it with both his own. At the first contact he started--a little -frightened. It felt so wonderful, so mighty. Thus might a gust of wind -or a billow of the sea have thrust against him. - -"A messenger--came," said the man with that laborious slow utterance, and -deep as thunder, "from--the--sea." - -"From--the--sea, yes," repeated O'Malley beneath his breath, yet -conscious rather that he wanted to shout and sing it. He saw the big -man smile. His own small hands were crushed in the grasp of power. -"I--understand," he added in a whisper. He found himself speaking with -a similar clogged utterance. Somehow, it seemed, the language they -ought to have used was either forgotten or unborn. Yet whereas his friend -was inarticulate perhaps, he himself was--dumb. These little modern -words were all wrong and inadequate. Modern speech could only deal -with modern smaller things. - -The giant half rose in his bed, as though at first to leap forward and -away from it. He tightened an instant the grasp upon his companion's -hands, then suddenly released them and pointed across the cabin. That -smile of happiness spread upon his face. O'Malley turned. There the -boy lay, deeply slumbering, the clothes flung back so that the air from -the port-hole played over the bare neck and chest; upon his face, too, -shone the look of peace and rest his father wore, the hunted expression -all gone, as though the spirit had escaped in sleep. The parent pointed, -first to the boy, then to himself, then to this new friend standing -beside his bed. The gesture including the three of them was of singular -authority--invitation, welcome, and command lay in it. More--in some -incomprehensible way it was majestic. O'Malley's thought flashed upon -him the limb of some great oak tree, swaying in the wind. - -Next, placing a finger on his lips, his eyes once more swept O'Malley -and the boy, and he turned again into the little bunk that so difficultly -held him, and lay back. The hair flowed down and mingled with the beard, -over pillow and neck, almost to the shoulders. And something that was -enormous and magnificent lay back with him, carrying with it again that -sudden atmosphere of greater bulk. With a deep sound in his throat that -was certainly no actual word and yet more expressive than any speech, he -turned hugely over among the little, scanty sheets, drew the curtain -again before his face, and returned into the world of--sleep. - - - - -XIII - -"It may happen that the earthly body falls asleep in one direction deeply -enough to allow it in others to awaken far beyond its usual limits, and -yet not so deeply and completely as to awaken no more. Or, to the -subjective vision there comes a flash so unusually vivid as to bring to -the earthly sense an impression rising above the threshold from an -otherwise inaccessible distance. Here begin the wonders of clairvoyance, -of presentiments, and premonitions in dreams;--pure fables, if the future -body and the future life are fables; otherwise signs of the one and -predictions of the other; but what has signs exists, and what has -prophecies will come." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -But O'Malley rolled into his own berth below without undressing, sleep -far from his eyes. He had heard the Gates of ivory and horn swing softly -upon their opening hinges, and the glimpse he caught of the garden beyond -made any question of slumber impossible. Again he saw those shapes of -cloud and wind flying over the long hills, while the name that should -describe them ran, hauntingly splendid, along the mysterious passages of -his being, though never coming quite to the surface for capture. - -Perhaps, too, he was glad that the revelation was only partial. The -size of the vision thus invoked awed him a little, so that he lay there -half wondering at the complete surrender he had made to this guidance -of another soul. - -Stahl's warnings ran far away and laughed. The idea even came to him that -Stahl was playing with him: that his portentous words had been carefully -chosen for their heightening effect upon his own imagination so that the -doctor might study an uncommon and extreme "case." The notion passed -through him merely, without lingering. - -In any event it was idle to put the brakes on now. He was internally -committed and must go wherever it might lead. And the thought rejoiced -him. He had climbed upon a pendulum that swung into an immense past; but -its return swing would bring him safely back. It was rushing now into -that nameless place of freedom that the primitive portion of his being -had hitherto sought in vain, and a fundamental, starved craving of his -life would know satisfaction at last. Already life had grown all glorious -without. It was not steel engines but a speeding sense of beauty that -drove the ship over the sea with feet of winged blue darkness. The stars -fled with them across the sky, dropping golden leashes to draw him faster -and faster forwards--yet within--to the dim days when this old world yet -was young. He took his fire of youth and spread it, as it were, all over -life till it covered the entire world, far, far away. Then he stepped -back into it, and the world herself, he found, stepped with him. - -He lay listening to the noises of the ship, the thump and bumble of -the engines, the distant droning of the screws under water. From time -to time stewards moved down the corridor outside, and the footsteps -of some late passenger still paced the decks overhead. He heard voices, -too, and occasionally the clattering of doors. Once or twice he fancied -some one moved stealthily to the cabin door and lingered there, but the -matter never drew him to investigate, for the sound each time resolved -itself naturally into the music of the ship's noises. - -And everything, meanwhile, heard or thought, fed the central concern -upon which his mind was busy. These superficial sounds, for instance, -had nothing to do with the real business of the ship; _that_ lay below -with the buried engines and the invisible screws that worked like demons -to bring her into port. And with himself and his slumbering companions -the case was similar. Their respective power-stations, working in the -subconscious, had urged them toward one another inevitably. How long, he -wondered, had the spirit of that lonely, alien "being" flashed messages -into the void that reached no receiving-station tuned to their -acceptance? Their accumulated power was great, the currents they -generated immense. He knew. For had they not charged full into himself -the instant he came on board, bringing an intimacy that was immediate -and full-fledged? - -The untamed longings that always tore him when he felt the great winds, -moved through forests, or found himself in desolate places, were at last -on the high road to satisfaction--to some "state" where all that they -represented would be explained and fulfilled. And whether such "state" -should prove to be upon the solid surface of the earth, objective; or in -the fluid regions of his inner being, subjective--was of no account -whatever. It would be true. The great figure that filled the berth above -him, now deeply slumbering, had in him subterraneans that gave access -not only to Greece, but far beyond that haunted land, to a state of -existence symbolized in the legends of the early world by Eden and the -Golden Age.... - -"You are in danger," that wise old speculative doctor had whispered, -"and especially in sleep!" But he did not sleep. He lay there thinking, -thinking, thinking, a rising exaltation of desire paving busily the path -along which eventually he might escape. - -As the night advanced and the lesser noises retired, leaving only the -deep sound of the steamer talking to the sea, he became aware, too, that -a change, at first imperceptibly, then swiftly, was stealing over the -cabin. It came with a riot of silent Beauty. At a loss to describe it -with precision, he nevertheless divined that it proceeded from the -sleeping figure overhead and in a lesser pleasure, too, from the boy upon -the sofa opposite. It emanated from these two, he felt, in proportion as -their bodies passed into deeper and deeper slumber, as though what -occurred sometimes upon the decks by an act of direct volition, took -place now automatically and with a fuller measure of release. Their -spirits, free of that other world in sleep, were alert and potently -discharging. Unconsciously, their vital, underlying essence escaped into -activity. - -Growing about his own person, next, it softly folded him in, casing -his inner being with glory and this crowding sense of beauty. This -increased manifestation of psychic activity reached down into the very -core of himself, like invisible fingers playing upon an instrument. -Notes--powers--in his soul, hitherto silent because none had known how -to sound them, rose singing to the surface. For it seemed at length that -forms of some intenser life, busily operating, moved to and fro within -the painted white walls of that little cabin, working subtly to bring -about a transformation of himself. A singular change was fast and -cleverly at work in his own being. It was, he puts it, a silent and -irresistible Evocation. - -No one of his senses was directly affected; certainly he neither saw, -felt, nor heard anything in the usual acceptance of the terms; but any -instant surely, it seemed that all his senses must awake and report to -the mind things that were splendid beyond the common order. In the -crudest aspect of it, he felt as though he extended and grew large--that -he dreaded to see himself in the mirror lest he might witness an external -appearance of bigness which corresponded to this interior expansion. - -For a long time he lay unresisting, letting the currents of this -subjective tempest play through and round him. Entrancing sensations of -beauty and rapture came with it. The outer world seemed remote and -trivial, the passengers unreal--the priest, the voluble merchant, the -jovial Captain, all spun like dead things at the periphery of life; -whereas he was moving toward the Center. Stahl--! the thought of Dr. -Stahl, alone intruded with a certain unwelcome air of hindrance, almost -as though he sought to end it, or call a halt. But Stahl, too, himself -presently spun off like a leaf before the rising wind... - -And then it was that an external sense was tapped, and he did hear -something. From the berth overhead came a faint sound that made his -heart stand still, though not with common fear. He listened intently. -The blood tearing through his ears at first concealed its actual nature. -It was far, far away; then came closer, as a waft of wind brings near and -carries off again a sound of bells in mountains. It fled over vales and -hills, to return a moment after with suddenness--a little louder, a -little nearer. And with it came an increase of this sense of beauty that -stretched his heart, as it were, to some deep ancient scale of joy once -known, but long forgotten... - -Across the cabin, the boy moved uneasily in his sleep. - -"Oh, that I could be with him where he now is!" he cried, "in that -place of eternal youth and eternal companionship!" The cry was -instinctive utterly; his whole being, condensed in the single yearning, -pressed through it--drove behind it. The place, the companionship, the -youth--all, he knew, would prove in some strange way enormous, vast, -ultimately satisfying forever and ever, far out of this little modern -world that imprisoned him... - -Again, most unwelcome and unexplained, the face of Stahl flashed -suddenly before him to hinder and interrupt. He banished it with -an effort, for it brought a smaller comprehension that somehow -involved--fear. - -"Curse the man!" flamed in anger across his world of beauty, and the -violence of the contrast broke something in his mind like a globe of -colored glass that had focused the exquisiteness of the vision.... The -sound continued as before, but its power of evocation lessened. The -thought of Stahl--Stahl in his denying aspect--dimmed it. - -Glancing up at the frosted electric light, O'Malley felt vaguely that -if he turned it out he would somehow yet see better, hear better, -understand more; and it was this practical consideration, introduced -indirectly by the thought of Stahl, that made him realize now for the -first time that he actually and definitely was--afraid. For, to leave his -bunk with its comparative, protective dark, and step into the middle of -a cabin he knew to be alive with a seethe of invisible charging forces, -made him realize that distinct effort was necessary--effort of will. If -he yielded he would be caught up and away, swept from his known moorings, -borne through high space out of himself. And Stahl with his cowardly -warnings and belittlements set fear, thus, in the place of free -acceptance. Otherwise he might even have come to these long blue hills -where danced and raced the giant shapes of cloud, singing while.... - -"Singing!" Ah! There was the clue! The sound he heard was singing--faint, -low singing; close beside him too. It was the big man, singing softly in -his sleep. - -This ordinary explanation of the "wonder-sound" brought him down to -earth, and so to a more normal feeling of security again. He stepped -cautiously from the bed, careful not to let the rings rattle on the rod -of brass, and slowly raised himself upright. And then, through a slit of -the curtain, he--saw. The lips of the big sleeper moved gently, the beard -rising and falling very slightly with them, and this murmur that he had -thought so far away, came out and sang deliriously and faint before his -very face. It most curiously--flowed. Easily, naturally, almost -automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once -understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant -hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the -singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly -over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it -swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In -it, too, there lay some accent of a secret, dim sublimity, deeper far -than any other human sound could touch. The terror of a great freedom -caught him, a freedom most awfully remote from the smaller personal -existence he knew Today ... for it suggested, with awe and wonder, the -kind of primitive utterance that was before speech or the development of -language; when emotions were still too vague and mighty to be caught by -little words, but when beings, close to the heart of their great Mother, -expressed the feelings, enormous and uncomplex, of the greater life they -shared as portions of her--projections of the Earth herself. - -With a crash in his brain, O'Malley stopped. These thoughts, he suddenly -realized, were not his own. An attack of unwonted sensations stung and -scattered his mind with a rush of giant splendor that threatened to -overwhelm him. He was in the very act of being carried away; his sense of -personal identity menaced; surrender well-nigh already complete. - -Another moment, especially if those eyes opened and caught him, and he -would be beyond recall in the region of these other two. The narrow space -of that little cabin was charged already to the brim, filled with some -overpowering loveliness of wild and simple things, the beauty of stars -and winds and flowers, the terror of seas and mountains; strange radiant -forms of gods and heroes, nymphs, fauns and satyrs; the fierce sunshine -of some Golden Age unspoiled, of a stainless region now long forgotten -and denied--that world of splendor his heart had ever craved in vain, and -beside which the life of Today faded to a wretched dream. - -It was the _Urwelt_ calling.... - -With a violent internal effort, he tore his gaze from those eyelids that -fortunately opened not. At the same moment, though he did not hear them, -steps came close in the corridor, and there was a rattling of the knob. -Behind him, a movement from the berth below the port-hole warned him that -he was but just in time. The Vision he was afraid as yet to acknowledge -drew with such awful speed toward the climax. - -Quickly he turned away, lifted the hook of the cabin door, and passed -into the passage, strangely faint. A great commotion followed him out: -father and son both, it seemed, suddenly upon their feet. And at the -same time the sound of "singing" rolled into the body of a great hushed -chorus, as it were of galloping winds that filled big valleys far away -with a gust of splendor, faintly roaring in some incredible distance -where no cities were, nor habitations of men; with a freedom, too, that -was majestic and sublime. Oh! the terrific gait of that life in an open -world!--Golden to the winds!--uncrowded!--The cosmic life--! - -O'Malley shivered as he heard. For an instant, the true grain of his -inner life, picked out in flame and silver, flashed clear. Almost--he -knew himself caught back. - -And there, in the dimly-lighted corridor, against the paneling of the -cabin wall, crouched Dr. Stahl--listening. The pain of the contrast was -vivid beyond words. It seemed as if he had passed from the thunder of -organs to hear the rattling of tin cans. Instantly he understood the -force that all along had held him back: the positive, denying aspect of -this man's mind--afraid. - -"_You!_" he exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are _you_ doing here?" -He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on -tiptoe to his side. He moved hurriedly. - -"Come away," he said vehemently under his breath. "Come with me to my -cabin--to the decks--anywhere away from this--before it's too late." - -And the Irishman then realized that his face was white and that his -voice shook. The hand that gripped him by the arm shook too. - -They went quickly along the deserted corridor and up the stairs, -O'Malley making no resistance, moving in a kind of dream. He has a -fleeting recollection of an odor, sweet and slightly pungent as of -horses, in his nostrils. The wind of the open decks revived him, and he -saw to his amazement that the East was brightening. In that cabin, then, -hours had been compressed into minutes. - -The steamer had already slipped by the Straits of Messina. To the right -he saw the cones of Etna, shadowy in the sky, calling across the dawn to -Stromboli their smoking brother of the Lipari. To the left over the blue -Ionian Sea the lights of a cloudless sunrise rose softly above the world. - -And the hour of enchantment seized and shook him anew. Somewhere, across -those faint blue waves, lay the things that he so passionately sought. It -was the very essence of their loveliness and wonder that had charged down -between the walls of that stuffy cabin below. For every morning still, at -dawn, the tired world knows again the splendors of her youth; and the -Irishman, shuddering a little in his sacred joy, felt that he must burst -his bonds and fly to join the sunrise and the sea. The yearning, he was -aware, had now increased a thousandfold: its fulfillment was merely -delayed. - -He passed along the decks all slippery with dew into Dr. Stahl's cabin, -and flung himself on the broad sofa to sleep. Sleep, too, came at once; -he was profoundly exhausted; and, while he slept, Stahl watched over him, -covering his body with a thick blanket. - - - - -XIV - -"It is a lovely imagination responding to the deepest desires, instincts, -cravings of spiritual man, that spiritual rapture should find an echo in -the material world; that in mental communion with God we should find -sensible communion with nature; and that, when the faithful rejoice -together, bird and beast, hill and forest, should be not felt only, but -seen to rejoice along with them. It is not the truth; between us and our -environment, whatever links there are, this link is wanting. But the -yearning for it, the passion which made Wordsworth cry out for something, -even were it the imagination of a pagan which would make him 'less -forlorn,' is natural to man; and simplicity leaps at the lovely fiction -of a response. Just here is the opportunity for such alliances between -spiritualism and superstition as are the daily despair of seekers -after truth." - ---Dr. VERRALL - - -And though he slept for hours the doctor never once left his side, but -sat there with pencil and notebook, striving to catch, yet in vain, some -accurate record of the strange fragmentary words that fell from his lips -at intervals. His own face was aflame with an interest that amounted to -excitement. The very hand that held the pencil trembled. One would have -said that thus somewhat a man might behave who found himself faced with -confirmation of some vast, speculative theory his mind had played with -hitherto from a distance only. - -Toward noon the Irishman awoke. The steamer, still loading oranges and -sacks of sulfur in the Catania harbor, was dusty and noisy. Most of the -passengers were ashore, hurrying with guidebooks and field-glasses to see -the statue of the dead Bellini or watch the lava flow. A blazing, -suffocating heat lay over the oily sea, and the summit of the volcano, -with its tiny, ever-changing puff of smoke, soared through blue haze. - -To Stahl's remark, "You've slept eight hours," he replied, "But I feel as -though I'd slept eight centuries away." He took the coffee and rolls -provided, and then smoked. The doctor lit a cigar. The red curtains over -the port-holes shut out the fierce sun, leaving the cabin cool and dim. -The shouting of the lightermen and officers mingled with the roar and -scuttle of the donkey-engine. And O'Malley knew perfectly well that while -the other moved about carelessly, playing with books and papers on his -desk, he was all the time keeping him under close observation. - -"Yes," he continued, half to himself, "I feel as if I'd fallen asleep in -one world and awakened into another where life is trivial and -insignificant, where men work like devils for things of no value in order -to accumulate them in great ugly houses; always collecting and -collecting, like mad children, possessions that they never really -possess--things external to themselves, valueless and unreal--" - -Dr. Stahl came up quietly and sat down beside him. He spoke gently, -his manner kind and grave rather. He put a hand upon his shoulder. - -"But, my dear boy," he said, the critical mood all melted away, "do -not let yourself go too completely. That is vicious thinking, believe me. -All details are important--here and now--spiritually important, if you -prefer the term. The symbols change with the ages, that is all." Then, as -the other did not reply, he added: "Keep yourself well in hand. Your -experience is of extraordinary interest--may even be of value, to -yourself as well as to--er--others. And what happened to you last night -is worthy of record--if you can use it without surrendering your soul to -it altogether. Perhaps, later, you will feel able to speak of it--to tell -me in detail a little--?" - -His keen desire to know more evidently fought with his desire to protect, -to heal, possibly even to prevent. - -"If I felt sure that your control were sufficient, I could tell you in -return some results of my own study of--certain cases in the hospitals, -you see, that might throw light upon--upon your own curious experience." - -O'Malley turned with such abruptness that the cigar ash fell down -over his clothes. The bait was strong, but the man's sympathy was not -sufficiently of a piece, he felt, to win his entire confidence. - -"I cannot discuss beliefs," he said shortly, "in the speculative way you -do. They are too real. A man doesn't argue about his love, does he?" He -spoke passionately. "Today everybody argues, discusses, speculates: no -one believes. If you had your way, you'd take away my beliefs and put in -their place some wretched little formula of science that the next -generation will prove all wrong again. It's like the N rays one of you -discovered: they never really existed at all." He laughed. Then his -flushed face turned grave again. "Beliefs are deeper than discoveries. -They are eternal." - -Stahl looked at him a moment with admiration. He moved across the cabin -toward his desk. - -"I am more with you than perhaps you understand," he said quietly, yet -without too obviously humoring him. "I am more--divided, that's all." - -"Modern!" exclaimed the other, noticing the ashes on his coat for -the first time and brushing them off impatiently. "Everything in you -expresses itself in terms of matter, forgetting that matter being in -continual state of flux is the least real of all things--" - -"Our training has been different," observed Stahl simply, interrupting -him. "I use another phraseology. Fundamentally, we are not so far -apart as you think. Our conversation of yesterday proves it, if you have -not forgotten. It is people like yourself who supply the material that -teaches people like me--helps me to advance--to speculate, though -you dislike the term." - -The Irishman was mollified, though for some time he continued in the same -strain. And the doctor let him talk, realizing that his emotion needed -the relief of this safety-valve. He used words loosely, but Stahl did not -check him; it was merely that the effort to express himself--this self -that could believe so much--found difficulty in doing so coherently in -modern language. He went very far. For the fact that while Stahl -criticized and denied, he yet understood, was a strong incentive -to talk. O'Malley plunged repeatedly over his depth, and each time the -doctor helped him in to shore. - -"Perhaps," said Stahl at length in a pause, "the greatest difference -between us is merely that whereas you jump headlong, ignoring details -by the way, I climb slowly, counting the steps and making them secure. -I deny at first because if the steps survive such denial, I know that -they are permanent. I build scaffolding. You fly." - -"Flight is quicker," put in the Irishman. - -"It is for the few," was the reply; "scaffolding is for all." - -"You spoke a few days ago of strange things," O'Malley said presently -with abruptness, "and spoke seriously too. Tell me more about that, if -you will." He sought to lead the talk away from himself, since he did -not intend to be fully drawn. "You said something about the theory that -the Earth is alive, a living being, and that the early legendary forms of -life may have been emanations--projections of herself--detached portions -of her consciousness--or something of the sort. Tell me about that -theory. Can there be really men who are thus children of the earth, -fruit of pure passion--Cosmic Beings as you hinted? It interests me -deeply." - -Dr. Stahl appeared to hesitate. - -"It is not new to me, of course," pursued the other, "but I should like -to know more." - -Stahl still seemed irresolute. "It is true," he replied at length slowly, -"that in an unguarded moment I let drop certain observations. It is -better you should consider them unsaid perhaps: forget them." - -"And why, pray?" - -The answer was well calculated to whet his appetite. - -"Because," answered the doctor, bending over to him as he crossed over to -his side, "they are dangerous thoughts to play with, dangerous to the -interests of humanity in its present state today, unsettling to the soul, -shaking the foundations of sane consciousness." He looked hard at him. -"Your own mind," he added softly, "appears to me to be already on their -track. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have in you that kind of -very passionate desire--of yearning--which might reconstruct them and -make them come true--for yourself--if you get out." - -O'Malley, his eyes shining, looked up into his face. - -"'Reconstruct--make them come true--if I get out'!" he repeated -stammeringly, fearful that if he appeared too eager the other would stop. -"You mean, of course, that this Double in me would escape and build -its own heaven?" - -Stahl nodded darkly. "Driven forth by your intense desire." After a -pause he added, "The process already begun in you would complete -itself." - -Ah! So obviously what the doctor wanted was a description of his -sensations in that haunted cabin. - -"Temporarily?" asked the Irishman under his breath. - -The other did not answer for a moment. O'Malley repeated the question. - -"Temporarily," said Stahl, turning away again toward his desk, -"unless--the yearning were too strong." - -"In which case--?" - -"Permanently. For it would draw the entire personality with it...." - -"The soul?" - -Stahl was bending over his books and papers. The answer was barely -audible. - -"Death," was the whispered word that floated across the heavy air of -that little sun-baked cabin. - -The word if spoken at all was so softly spoken that the Irishman -scarcely knew whether he actually heard it, or whether it was uttered by -his own thought. He only realized--catching some vivid current from -the other man's mind--that this separation of a vital portion of himself -that Stahl hinted at might involve a kind of nameless inner catastrophe -which should mean the loss of his personality as it existed today--an -idea, however, that held no terror for him if it meant at the same time -the recovery of what he so passionately sought. - -And another intuition flashed upon its heels--namely, that this -extraordinary doctor spoke of something he knew as a certainty; that -his amazing belief, though paraded as theory, was to him more than -theory. Had he himself undergone some experience that he dared not -speak of, and were his words based upon a personal experience instead -of, as he pretended, merely upon the observation of others? Was this a -result of his study of the big man two years ago? Was this the true -explanation of his being no longer an assistant at the H--hospital, -but only a ship's doctor? Had this "modern" man, after all, a flaming -volcano of ancient and splendid belief in him, akin to what was in -himself, yet ever fighting it? - -Thoughts raced and thundered through his mind as he watched him across -the cigar smoke. The rattling of that donkey-engine, the shouts of the -lightermen, the thuds of the sulfur-sacks--how ridiculous they all -sounded, the clatter of a futile, meaningless existence where men -gathered--rubbish, for mere bodies that lived amid dust a few years, -then returned to dust forever. - -He sprang from his sofa and crossed over to the doctor's side. Stahl -was still bending over a littered desk. - -"You, too," he cried, and though trying to say it loud, his voice could -only whisper, "you, too, must have the _Urmensch_ in your heart and -blood, for how else, by my soul, could you _know_ it all? Tell me, -doctor, tell me!" And he was on the very verge of adding, "Join us! Come -and join us!" when the little German turned his bald head slowly round -and fixed upon the excited Irishman such a cool and quenching stare that -instantly he felt himself convicted of foolishness, almost of -impertinence. - -He dropped backwards into an armchair, and the doctor at the same moment -let himself down upon the revolving stool that was nailed to the floor in -front of the desk. His hands smoothed out papers. Then he leaned forward, -still holding his companion's eyes with that steady stare which forbade -familiarity. - -"My friend," he said quietly in German, "you asked me just now to tell -you of the theory--Fechner's theory--that the Earth is a living, -conscious Being. If you care to listen, I will do so. We have time." He -glanced round at the shady cabin, took down a book from the shelf -before him, puffed his black cigar and began to read. - -"It is from one of your own people--William James; what you call a -'Hibbert Lecture' at Manchester College. It gives you an idea, at least, -of what Fechner saw. It is better than my own words." - -So Stahl, in his turn, refused to be "drawn." O'Malley, as soon as he -recovered from the abruptness of the change from that other conversation, -gave all his attention. The uneasy feeling that he was being played -with, coaxed as a specimen to the best possible point for the microscope, -passed away as the splendor of the vast and beautiful conception dawned -upon him, and shaped those nameless yearnings of his life in glowing -language. - - - - -XV - - -The shadows of the September afternoon were lengthening toward us from -the Round Pond by the time O'Malley reached this stage of his curious and -fascinating story. It was chilly under the trees, and the "wupsey-up, -wupsey-down" babies, as he termed them, had long since gone in to their -teas, or whatever it is that London babies take at six o'clock. - -We strolled home together, and he welcomed the idea of sharing a dinner -we should cook ourselves in the tiny Knightsbridge flat. "Stewpot -evenings," he called these occasions. They reminded us of camping trips -together, although it must be confessed that in the cage-like room the -"stew" never tasted quite as it did beside running water on the skirts of -the forest when the dews were gathering on the little gleaming tent, and -the wood-smoke mingled with the scents of earth and leaves. - -Passing that grotesque erection opposite the Albert Hall, gaudy in the -last touch of sunset, I saw him shudder. The spell of the ship and sea -and the blazing Sicilian sunshine lay still upon us, Etna's cones -towering beyond those gilded spikes of the tawdry Memorial. I stole a -glance at my companion. His light blue eyes shone, but with the -reflection of another sunset--the sunset of forgotten, ancient, far-off -scenes when the world was young. - -His personality held something of magic in that silent stroll homewards, -for no word fell from either one of us to break its charm. The untidy -hair escaped from beneath the broad-brimmed old hat, and his faded coat -of grey flannel seemed touched with the shadows that the dusk brings -beneath wild-olive trees. I noticed the set of his ears, and how the -upper points of them ran so sharply into the hair. His walk was springy, -light, very quiet, suggesting that he moved on open turf where a sudden -running jump would land him, not into a motor-bus, but into a mossy -covert where ferns grew. There was a certain fling of the shoulders that -had an air of rejecting streets and houses. Some fancy, wild and sweet, -caught me of a faun passing down through underbrush of woodland glades to -drink at a forest pool; and, chance giving back to me a little verse of -Alice Corbin's, I turned and murmured it while watching him: - -What dim Arcadian pastures - Have I known, -That suddenly, out of nothing, - A wind is blown, -Lifting a veil and a darkness, - Showing a purple sea-- -And under your hair, the faun's eyes - Look out on me? - -It was, of course, that whereas his body marched along Hill Street and -through Montpelier Square, his thoughts and spirit flitted through the -haunted, old-time garden he forever craved. I thought of the morrow--of -my desk in the Life Insurance Office, of the clerks with oiled hair -brushed back from the forehead, all exactly alike, trousers neatly turned -up to show fancy colored socks from bargain sales, their pockets full of -cheap cigarettes, their minds busy with painted actresses and the names -of horses! A Life Insurance Office! All London paying yearly sums to -protect themselves against--against the most interesting moment of -life. Premiums upon escape and freedom! - -Again, it was the spell of my companion's personality that turned all -this paraphernalia of the busy, modern existence into the counters in -some grotesque and rather sordid game. Tomorrow, of course, it would -all turn real and earnest again, O'Malley's story a mere poetic fancy. -But for the moment I lived it with him, and found it magnificent. - -And the talk we had that evening when the stew-pot was empty and we were -smoking on the narrow-ledged roof of the prison-house--for he always -begged for open air, and with cushions we often sat beneath the stars and -against the grimy chimney-pots--that talk I shall never forget. Life -became constructed all anew. The power of the greatest fairy tale this -world can ever know lay about me, raised to its highest expression. I -caught at least some touch of reality--of awful reality--in the idea that -this splendid globe whereon we perched like insects peeping timidly from -tiny cells, might be the body of a glorious Being--the mighty frame to -which some immense Collective Consciousness, vaster than that of men, and -wholly different in kind, might be attached. - -In the story, as I found it later in the dusty little Paddington room, -O'Malley reported, somewhat heavily, it seemed to me, the excerpts -chosen by Dr. Stahl. As an imaginative essay, they were interesting, of -course, and vitally suggestive, but in a tale of adventure such as this -they overweight the barque of fancy. Yet, in order to appreciate what -followed, it seems necessary for the mind to steep itself in something of -his ideas. The reader who dreads to think, and likes his imagination to -soar unsupported, may perhaps dispense with the balance of this section; -but to be faithful to the scaffolding whereon this Irishman built his -amazing dream, I must attempt as best I can some précis of that -conversation. - - - - -XVI - -"Every fragment of visible Nature might, as far as is known, serve as -part in some organism unlike our bodies.... As to that which can, and -that which cannot, play the part of an organism, we know very little. A -sameness greater or less with our own bodies is the basis from which we -conclude to other bodies and souls.... A certain likeness of outward -form, and again some amount of similarity in action, are what we stand on -when we argue to psychical life. But our failure, on the other side, to -discover these symptoms is no sufficient warrant for positive denial. It -is natural in this connection to refer to Fechner's vigorous advocacy." - ---F.H. BRADLEY, _Appearance and Reality_ - - -It was with an innate resistance--at least a stubborn prejudice--that -I heard him begin. The earth, of course, was but a bubble of dried fire, -a huge round clod, dead as mutton. How could it be, in any permissible -sense of the word--alive? - -Then, gradually, as he talked there among the chimney-pots of old smoky -London, there stole over me this new and disquieting sense of reality--a -strange, vast splendor, too mighty to lie in the mind with comfort. -Laughter fled away, ashamed. A new beauty, as of some amazing dawn, -flashed and broke upon the world. The autumn sky overhead, thick-sown -with its myriad stars, came down close, sifting gold and fire about my -life's dull ways. That desk in the Insurance Office of Cornhill gleamed -beyond as an altar or a possible throne. - -The glory of Fechner's immense speculation flamed about us both, majestic -yet divinely simple. Only a dim suggestion of it, of course, lay caught -in the words the Irishman used--words, as I found later, that were a -mixture of Professor James and Dr. Stahl, flavored strongly with Terence -O'Malley--but a suggestion potent enough to have haunted me ever since -and to have instilled meanings of stupendous divinity into all the -commonest things of daily existence. Mountains, seas, wide landscapes, -forests,--all I see now with emotions of wonder, delight, and awe unknown -to me before. Flowers, rain, wind, even a London fog, have come to hold -new meanings. - -I never realized before that the mere _size_ of our old planet could -have hindered the perception of so fair a vision, or her mere -quantitative bulk have killed automatically in the mind the possible idea -of her being in some sense living. A microbe, endowed with our powers of -consciousness, might similarly deny life to the body of the elephant on -which it rode; or some wee arguing atom, endowed with mind and senses, -persuade itself that the monster upon whose flesh it dwelt were similarly -a "heavenly body" of dead, inert matter; the bulk of the "world" that -carried them obstructing their perception of its Life. - -And Fechner, as it seems, was no mere dreamer, playing with a huge -poetical conception. Professor of Physics in Leipsic University, he found -time amid voluminous labors in chemistry to study electrical science -with the result that his measurements in galvanism are classic to this -day. His philosophical work was more than considerable. "A book on the -atomic theory, classic also; four elaborate mathematical and experimental -volumes on what he called psychophysics (many persons consider Fechner to -have practically founded scientific psychology in the first of these -books); a volume on organic evolution, and two works on experimental -æsthetics, in which again Fechner is thought by some judges to have laid -the foundations of a new science," are among his other performances.... -"All Leipsic mourned him when he died, for he was the pattern of the -ideal German scholar, as daringly original in his thought as he was -homely in his life, a modest, genial, laborious slave to truth and -learning.... His mind was indeed one of those multitudinously organized -crossroads of truth which are occupied only at rare intervals by children -of men, and from which nothing is either too far or too near to be seen -in due perspective. Patientest observation, exactest mathematics, -shrewdest discrimination, humanest feeling, flourished in him on the -largest scale, with no apparent detriment to one another. He was in fact -a philosopher in the 'great' sense." - -"Yes," said O'Malley softly in my ear as we leaned against the chimneys -and watched the tobacco curl up to the stars, "and it was this man's -imagination that had evidently caught old Stahl and bowled him over. -I never fathomed the doctor quite. His critical and imaginative apparatus -got a bit mixed up, I suspect, for one moment he cursed me for asking -'suspicious questions,' and the next sneered sarcastically at me for -boiling over with a sudden inspirational fancy of my own. He never -gave himself away completely, and left me to guess that he made that -Hospital place too hot to hold him. He was a wonderful bird. But every -time I aimed at him I shot wide and hit a cloud. Meantime he peppered -me all over--one minute urging me into closer intimacy with my -Russian--his cosmic being, his _Urmensch_ type--so that he might study -my destruction, and half an hour later doing his utmost apparently to -protect me from him and keep me sane and balanced." His laugh rang -out over the roofs. - -"The net result," he added, his face tilted toward the stars as though -he said it to the open sky rather than to me, "was that he pushed me -forwards into the greatest adventure life has ever brought to me. I -believe, I verily believe that sometimes, there were moments of -unconsciousness--semi-consciousness perhaps--when I really did leave my -body--caught away as Moses, or was it Job or Paul?--into a Third Heaven, -where I touched a bit of Reality that fairly made me reel with happiness -and wonder." - -"Well, but Fechner--and his great idea?" I brought him back. - -He tossed his cigarette down into the back-garden that fringed the -Park, leaning over to watch its zigzag flight of flame. - -"Is simply this," he replied, "--'that not alone the earth but the -whole Universe in its different spans and wave-lengths, is everywhere -alive and conscious.' He regards the spiritual as the rule in Nature, not -the exception. The professorial philosophers have no vision. Fechner -towers above them as a man of vision. He dared to imagine. He made -discoveries--whew!!" he whistled, "and such discoveries!" - -"To which the scholars and professors of today," I suggested, "would -think reply not even called for?" - -"Ah," he laughed, "the solemn-faced Intellectuals with their narrow -outlook, their atrophied vision, and their long words! Perhaps! But in -Fechner's universe there is room for every grade of spiritual being -between man and God. The vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders -of body. He believes passionately in the Earth Soul, he treats her as our -special guardian angel; we can pray to the Earth as men pray to their -saints. The Earth has a Collective Consciousness. We rise upon the Earth -as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow out of her soil as leaves grow -from a tree. Sometimes we find our bigger life and realize that we are -parts of her bigger collective consciousness, but as a rule we are aware -only of our separateness, as individuals. These moments of cosmic -consciousness are rare. They come with love, sometimes with pain, music -may bring them too, but above all--landscape and the beauty of Nature! -Men are too petty, conceited, egoistic to welcome them, clinging for dear -life to their precious individualities." - -He drew breath and then went on: "'Fechner likens our individual -persons on the earth to so many sense-organs of her soul, adding to -her perceptive life so long as our own life lasts. She absorbs our -perceptions, just as they occur, into her larger sphere of knowledge. -When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for -all perceptive contributions from that particular quarter cease.'" - -"Go on," I exclaimed, realizing that he was obviously quoting verbatim -fragments from James that he had since pondered over till they had -become his own, "Tell me more. It is delightful and very splendid." - -"Yes," he said, "I'll go on quick enough, provided you promise me one -thing: and that is--to understand that Fechner does not regard the -Earth as a sort of big human being. If a being at all, she is a being -utterly different from us in kind, as of course we know she is in -structure. Planetary beings, as a class, would be totally different from -any other beings that we know. He merely protests at the presumption of -our insignificant human knowledge in denying some kind of life and -consciousness to a form so beautifully and marvelously organized as -that of the earth! The heavenly bodies, he holds, are beings superior to -men in the scale of life--a vaster order of intelligence altogether. A -little two-legged man with his cocksure reason strutting on its tiny -brain as the apex of attainment he ridicules. D'ye see, now?" - -I gasped, I lit a big pipe--and listened. He went on. This time it was -clearly a page from that Hibbert Lecture Stahl had mentioned--the one -in which Professor James tries to give some idea of Fechner's aim and -scope, while admitting that he "inevitably does him miserable injustice -by summarizing and abridging him." - -"Ages ago the earth was called an animal," I ventured. "We all know -that." - -"But Fechner," he replied, "insists that a planet is a higher class of -being than either man or animal--'a being whose enormous size requires an -altogether different plan of life.'" - -"An inhabitant of the ether--?" - -"You've hit it," he replied eagerly. "Every element has its own living -denizens. Ether, then, also has hers--the globes. 'The ocean of ether, -whose waves are light, has also her denizens--higher by as much as -their element is higher, swimming without fins, flying without wings, -moving, immense and tranquil, as by a half-spiritual force through the -half-spiritual sea which they inhabit,' sensitive to the slightest pull -of one another's attraction: beings in every way superior to us. Any -imagination, you know," he added, "can play with the idea. It is old as -the hills. But this chap showed how and why it could be actually true." - -"This superiority, though?" I queried. "I should have guessed their -stage of development lower than ours, rather than higher." - -"Different," he answered, "different. That's the point." - -"Ah!" I watched a shooting star dive across our thick, wet atmosphere, -and caught myself wondering whether the flash and heat of that hurrying -little visitor produced any reaction in this Collective Consciousness -of the huge Body whereon we perched and chattered, and upon which -later it would fall in finest dust. - -"It is by insisting on the differences as well as on the resemblances," -rushed on the excited O'Malley, "that he makes the picture of the earth's -life so concrete. Think a moment. For instance, our animal organization -comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to and fro, of stretching -our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only our defect." - -"Defect!" I cried. "But we're so proud of it!" - -'"What are our legs,'" he laughed, "'but crutches, by means of which, -with restless efforts, we go hunting after the things we have not inside -ourselves? The Earth is no such cripple; why should she who already -possesses within herself the things we so painfully pursue, have limbs -analogous to ours? What need has she of arms, with nothing to reach -for? Of a neck with no head to carry? Of eyes or nose, when she finds -her way through space without either, and has the millions of eyes of -all her animals to guide their movements on her surface, and all their -noses to smell the flowers she grows?'" - -"We are literally a part of her, then--projections of her immense life, -as it were--one of the projections, at least?" - -"Exactly. And just as we are ourselves a part of the earth," he -continued, taking up my thought at once, "so are our organs her organs. -'She is, as it were, eye and ear over her whole extent--all that we see -and hear in separation she sees and hears at once.'" He stood up beside -me and spread his hands out to the stars and over the trees and paths -of the Park at our feet, where the throngs of men and women walked -and talked together in the cool of the evening. His enthusiasm grew as -the idea of this German's towering imagination possessed him. - -"'She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon her surface, -and their multitudinous conscious relations with each other she takes -up into her higher and more general conscious life.'" - -He leaned over the parapet and drew me to his side. I stared with him -at the reflection of London town in the sky, thinking of the glow and -heat and restless stir of the great city and of the frantic strivings of -its millions for success--money, power, fame, a few, here and there, for -spiritual success. The roar of its huge trafficking beat across the night -in ugly thunder to our ears. I thought of the other cities of the world; -of its villages; of shepherds among the lonely hills; of its myriad wild -creatures in forest, plain, and mountain... - -"All this she takes up into her great heart as part of herself!" I -murmured. - -"All this," he replied softly, as the sound of the Band beyond the -Serpentine floated over to us on our roof; "--the separate little -consciousnesses of all the cities, all the tribes, all the nations of -men, animals, flowers, insects--everything." He again opened his arms to -the sky. He drew in deep breaths of the night air. The dew glistened on -the slates behind us. Far across the towers of Westminster a yellow moon -rose slowly, dimming the stars. Big Ben, deeply booming, trembled on -the air nine of her stupendous vibrations. Automatically, I counted -them--subconsciously. - -"And all our subconscious sensations are also hers," he added, catching -my thought again; "our dreams but half divined, our aspirations half -confessed, our tears, our yearnings, and our--prayers." - -At the moment it almost seemed to me as if our two minds joined, each -knowing the currents of the other's thought, and both caught up, gathered -ill, folded comfortably away into the stream of a Consciousness far -bigger than either. It was like a momentary, specific proof of what -he urged--a faint pulse-beat we heard of the soul of the earth; and it -was amazingly uplifting. - -"Every form of life, then, is of importance," I heard myself thinking, -or saying, for I hardly knew which. "The tiniest efforts of value--even -the unrecognized ones, and those that seem futile." - -"Even the failures," he whispered, "--the moments when we do not trust -her." - -We stood for some moments in silence. Presently, with a hand upon my -shoulder, he drew me down again among our rugs against the chimney-stack. - -"And there are some of us," he said gently, yet with a voice that held -the trembling of an immense joy, "who know a more intimate relationship -with their great Mother than the rest, perhaps. By the so-called Love -of Nature, or by some artless simplicity of soul, wholly unmodern of -course, perhaps felt by children or poets mostly, they lie caught close -to her own deep life, knowing the immense sweet guidance of her mighty -soul, divinely mothered, strangers to all the strife for material -gain--to that 'unrest which men miscall delight,'--primitive children of -her potent youth ... offspring of pure passion ... each individual -conscious of her weight and drive behind him--" His words faded away into -a whisper that became unintelligible, then inaudible; but his thought -somehow continued itself in my own mind. - -"The simple life," I said in a low tone; "the Call of the Wild, raised -to its highest power?" - -But he changed my sentence a little. - -"The call," he answered, without turning to look at me, speaking it -into the night about us, "the call to childhood, the true, pure, vital -childhood of the Earth--the Golden Age--before men tasted of the Tree and -knew themselves separate; when the lion and the lamb lay down together -and a little child could lead them. A time and state, that is, of which -such phrases can be symbolical." - -"And of which there may be here and there some fearful exquisite -survival?" I suggested, remembering Stahl's words. - -His eyes shone with the fire of his passion. "Of which on that little -tourist steamer I found one!" - -The wind that fanned our faces came perhaps across the arid wastes -of Bayswater and the North-West. It also came from the mountains and -gardens of this lost Arcadia, vanished for most beyond recovery.... - -"The Hebrew poets called it Before the Fall," he went on, "and later -poets the Golden Age; today it shines through phrases like the Land of -Heart's Desire, the Promised Land, Paradise, and what not; while the -minds of saint and mystic have ever dreamed of it as union with their -deity. For it is possible and open to all, to every heart, that is, not -blinded by the cloaking horror of materialism which blocks the doorways -of escape and prisons self behind the drab illusion that the outer form -is the reality and riot the inner thought...." - -The hoarse shouting of a couple of drunken men floated to us from the -pavements, and crossing over, we peered down toward the opening of Sloane -Street, watching a moment the stream of broughams, motors, and -pedestrians. The two men with the rage of an artificial stimulant in -their brains reeled out of sight. A big policeman followed slowly. The -night-life of the great glaring city poured on unceasingly--the stream -of souls all hurrying by divers routes and means toward a state where -they sought to lose themselves--to forget the pressure of the bars that -held them--to escape the fret and worry of their harassing personalities, -and touch some fringe of happiness! All so sure they knew the way--yet -hurrying really in the wrong direction--outwards instead of inwards; -afraid to be--simple.... - -We moved back to our rugs. For a long time neither of us found -anything to say. Soon I led the way down the creaking ladder indoors -again, and we entered the stuffy little sitting-room of the tiny flat he -temporarily occupied. I turned up an electric light, but O'Malley begged -me to lower it. I only had time to see that his eyes were still aglow. We -sat by the open window. He drew a worn notebook from his still more -worn coat; but it was too dark for him to read. He knew it all by heart. - - - - -XVII - - -Some of Fechner's reasons for thinking the Earth a being superior in the -scale to ourselves, he gave, but it was another passage that lingered -chiefly in my heart, the description of the daring German's joy in -dwelling upon her perfections--later, too, of his first simple vision. -Though myself wholly of the earth, earthy in the ordinary sense, the -beauty of the thoughts live in my spirit to this day, transfiguring even -that dingy Insurance Office, streaming through all my dullest, hardest -daily tasks with the inspiration of a simple delight that helps me over -many a difficult weary time of work and duty. - -"'To carry her precious freight through the hours and seasons what form -could be more excellent than hers--being as it is horse, wheels, and -wagon all in one. Think of her beauty--a shining ball, sky-blue and -sunlit over one half, the other bathed in starry night, reflecting the -heavens from all her waters, myriads of lights and shadows in the folds -of her mountains and windings of her valleys she would be a spectacle -of rainbow glory, could one only see her from afar as we see parts of -her from her own mountain tops. Every quality of landscape that has -a name would then be visible in her all at once--all that is delicate or -graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or -cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. _That landscape is her face_--a peopled -landscape, too, for men's eyes would appear in it like diamonds among the -dew-drops. Green would be the dominant color, but the blue atmosphere -and the clouds would enfold her as a bride is shrouded in her veil--a -veil the vapory, transparent folds of which the earth, through her -ministers the winds, never tires of laying and folding about herself -anew.' - -"She needs, as a sentient organism," he continued, pointing into the -curtain of blue night beyond the window, "no heart or brain or lungs -as we do, for she is--different. 'Their functions she performs _through -us_! She has no proper muscles or limbs of her own, and the only objects -external to her are the other stars. To these her whole mass reacts by -the most exquisite alterations in its total gait and by the still more -exquisite vibratory responses in its substance. Her ocean reflects the -lights of heaven as in a mighty mirror, her atmosphere refracts them like -a monstrous lens, the clouds and snowfields combine them into white, -the woods and flowers disperse them into colors.... Men have always -made fables about angels, dwelling in the light, needing no earthly food -or drink, messengers between ourselves and God. Here are actually -existent beings, dwelling in the light and moving through the sky, -needing neither food nor drink, intermediaries between God and us, -obeying His commands. So, if the heavens really are the home of angels, -the heavenly bodies must be those very angels, for other creatures there -are none. Yes! the Earth is our great common guardian angel, who -watches over all our interests combined.' - -"And then," whispered the Irishman, seeing that I still eagerly listened, -"give your ear to one of his moments of direct vision. Note its -simplicity, and the authority of its conviction: - -"'On a certain spring morning I went out to walk. The fields were green, -the birds sang, the dew glistened, the smoke was rising, here and there a -man appeared; a light as of transfiguration lay on all things. It was -only a little bit of the earth; it was only a moment of her existence; -and yet as my look embraced her more and more it seemed to me not -only so beautiful an idea, but so true and clear a fact, that she is an -angel, an angel so rich and fresh and flower-like, and yet going her -round in the skies so firmly and so at one with herself, turning her -whole living face to Heaven, and carrying me along with her into that -Heaven, that I asked myself how the opinions of men could ever have so -spun themselves away from life as to deem the earth only a dry clod, -and to seek for angels above it or about it in the emptiness of the -sky,--only to find them nowhere.'" - -Fire-engines, clanging as with a hurrying anger through the night, -broke in upon his impassioned sentences; the shouts of the men drowned -his last words.... - -Life became very wonderful inside those tight, confining walls, for -the spell and grandeur of the whole conception lifted the heart. Even -if belief failed, in the sense of believing--a shilling, it succeeded in -the sense of believing--a symphony. The invading beauty swept about us -both. Here was a glory that was also a driving power upon which any -but a man half dead could draw for practical use. For the big conceptions -fan the will. The little pains of life, they make one feel, need not kill -true joy, nor deaden effort. - -"Come," said O'Malley softly, interrupting my dream of hope and -splendor, "let us walk together through the Park to your place. It is -late, and you, I know, have to be up early in the morning ... earlier -than I." - -And presently we passed the statue of Achilles and got our feet upon -the turf beyond--a little bit of living planet in the middle of the -heavy smothering London town. About us, over us, within us, stirred the -awe of that immense idea. Upon that bit of living, growing turf we -passed toward the Marble Arch, treading, as it were, the skin of a huge -Body--the physical expression of a grand angelic Being, alive, sentient, -conscious. Conscious, moreover, of our little separate individual selves -who walked ... a Being who cared; who felt us; who knew, understood, -and--loved us as a mother her own offspring.... "To whom men could -pray as they pray to their saints." - -The conception, even thus dimly and confusedly adumbrated, brought a new -sense of life--terrific and eternal. All living things upon the earth's -surface were emanations of her mighty central soul; all--from the gods -and fairies of olden time who knew it, to the men and women of Today who -have forgotten it. - -The gods--! - -Were these then projections of her personality--aspects and facets -of her divided self--emanations now withdrawn? Latent in her did they -still exist as moods or Powers--true, alive, everlasting, but unmanifest? -Still knowable to simple men and to Children of Nature? - -Was this the giant truth that Stahl had built on Fechner? - -Everything about us seemed to draw together into an immense and -towering configuration that included trees and air and the sweep of -open park--the looming and overwhelming beauty of one of these very -gods survived--Pan, the eternal and the splendid ... a mood of the -Earth-life, a projection clothed with the light of stars, the cloudy air, -the passion of the night, the thrill of an august, extended Mood. - -And the others were not so very far behind--those other little parcels -of Earth's Consciousness the Greeks and early races, the simple, -primitive, childlike peoples of the dawn, divined the existence of, and -labeled "gods" ... and worshipped ... so as to draw their powers into -themselves by ecstasy and vision ... - -Could, then, worship now still recall them? Was the attitude of even -one true worshipper's heart the force necessary to touch that particular -aspect of the mighty total Consciousness of Earth, and call forth those -ancient forms of beauty? Could it be that this idea--the idea of "the -gods"--was thus forever true and vital...? And might they be known -and felt in the heart if not actually in some suggested form? - -I only know that as we walked home past the doors of that dingy -Paddington house where Terence O'Malley kept his dusty books and -papers and so to my own quarters, these things he talked about dropped -into my mind with a bewildering splendor to stay forever. His words I -have forgotten, or how he made such speculations worth listening to at -all. Yet, I hear them singing in my blood as though of yesterday; and -often when that conflict comes 'twixt duty and desire that makes life -sometimes so vain and bitter, the memory comes to lift with strength -far greater than my own. The Earth can heal and bless. - - - - -XVIII - - -Slowly, taking life easily, the little steamer puffed its way across the -Ionian Sea. The pyramid of Etna, bluer even than the sky, dominated -the western horizon long after the heel of Italy had faded, then melted -in its turn into the haze of cloud and distance. No other sails were -visible. - -With the passing of Calabria spring had leaped into the softness of -full summer, and the breezes were gentle as those that long ago fanned -the cheeks and hair of Io, beloved of Zeus, as she flew southwards toward -the Nile. The passengers, less lovely than that fair daughter of Argos, -and with the unrest of thinner adventure in their blood, basked lazily -in the sun; but the sea was not less haunted for those among them whose -hearts could travel. The Irishman at any rate slipped beyond the confines -of the body, viewing that ancient scene as she had done, from above. -His widening consciousness expanded to include it. - -Cachalots spouted; dolphins danced, as though still to those wild -flutes of Dionysus; porpoises rolled beneath the surface of the -transparent waves, diving below the vessel's sides but just in time to -save their shiny noses; and all day long, ignoring the chart upon the -stairway walls, the tourists turned their glasses eastwards, searching -for a first sight of Greece. - -O'Malley, meanwhile, trod the decks of a new ship. For him now sea -and sky were doubly peopled. The wind brought messages of some divine -deliverance approaching slowly, the heat of that pearly, shining sun -warmed centers of his being that hitherto the world kept chill. The land -toward which the busy steamer moved he knew, of course, was but the -shell from which the inner spirit of beauty once vivifying it had long -since passed away. Yet it remained a clue. That ancient loveliness, as a -mood of the earth's early consciousness, was buried, not destroyed. -Eternally it still flamed somewhere. And, long before the days of Greece, -he knew, it had existed in yet fuller and more complete manifestation: -that earliest, vastly splendid Mood of the earth's soul, too mighty for -any existence that the history of humanity can recall, and too remote -for any but the most daringly imaginative minds even to conceive. The -_Urwelt_ Mood, as Stahl himself admitted, even while it called to him, -was a reconstruction that to men today could only seem--dangerous. - -And his own little Self, guided by the inarticulate stranger, was being -led at last toward its complete recapture. - -Yet, while he crawled slowly with the steamer over a tiny portion of -the spinning globe, feeling that at the same time he crawled toward a -spot upon it where access would be somehow possible to this huge -expression of her first Life--what was it, phrased timidly as men phrase -big thoughts today, that he really believed? Even in our London talks, -intimate as they were, interpreted too by gesture, facial expression, -and--silence, his full meaning evaded precise definition. "There are no -words, there are no words," he kept saying, shrugging his shoulders and -stroking his untidy hair. "In me, deep down, it all lies clear and plain -and strong; but language cannot seize a mode of life that throve before -language existed. If you cannot catch the picture from my thoughts, I -give up the whole dream in despair." And in his written account, owing -to its strange formlessness, the result was not a little bewildering. - -Briefly stated, however--that remnant, at least, which I discover in -my own mind when attempting to tell the story to others--what he -felt, believed, _lived_, at any rate while the adventure lasted, was -this:-- - -That the Earth, as a living, conscious Being, had known visible -projections of her consciousness similar to those projections of our own -personality which the advanced psychologists of today now envisage as -possible; that the simple savagery of his own nature, and the poignant -yearnings derived from it, were in reality due to his intimate closeness -to the life of the Earth; that, whereas in the body the fulfillment of -these longings was impossible, in the spirit he might yet know contact -with the soul of the planet, and thus experience their complete -satisfaction. Further, that the portion of his personality which could -thus enter this heaven of its own subjective construction, was that -detachable portion Stahl had spoken of as being "malleable by desire and -longing," leaving the body partially and temporarily sometimes in sleep, -and, at death, completely. More,--that the state thus entered would mean -a quasi-merging back into the life of the Earth herself, of which he was -a partial expression. - -This closeness to Nature was today so rare as to be almost unrecognized -as possible. Its possession constituted its owner what the doctor -called a "Cosmic Being"--a being scarcely differentiated from the life -of the Earth Spirit herself--a direct expression of her life, a survival -of a time before such expressions had separated away from her and become -individualized as human creatures. Moreover, certain of these earliest -manifestations or projections of her consciousness, knowing in their -huge shapes of fearful yet simple beauty a glory of her own being, still -also survived. The generic term of "gods" might describe their status as -interpreted to the little human power called Imagination. - -This call to the simple life of primal innocence and wonder that had ever -brimmed the heart of the Irishman, acknowledged while not understood, -might have slumbered itself away with the years among modern conditions -into atrophy and denial, had he not chanced to encounter a more direct -and vital instance of it even than himself. The powerfully-charged being -of this Russian stranger had summoned it forth. The mere presence of this -man quickened and evoked this faintly-stirring center in his psychic -being that opened the channel of return. Speech, as any other -explanation, was unnecessary. To resist was still within his power. To -accept and go was also open to him. The "inner catastrophe" he feared -need not perhaps be insuperable or permanent. - -"Remember," the doctor had said to him at the end of that last -significant conversation, "this berth in my stateroom is freely at your -disposal till Batoum." And O'Malley, thanking him, had shaken off -that restraining hand upon his arm, knowing that he would never make -use of it again. - -For the Russian stranger and his son had somehow made him free. - -Between that cabin and the decks he spent his day. Occasionally he -would go below to report progress, as it were, by little sentences which -he divined would be acceptable, and at the same time gave expression -to his own growing delight. The boy, meanwhile, was everywhere, playing -alone like a wild thing; one minute in the bows, hat off, gazing -across the sea beneath a shading hand, and the next leaning over the -stern-rails to watch the churning foam that drove them forwards. At -regular intervals he, too, rushed to the cabin and brought communications -to his parent. - -"Tomorrow at dawn," observed the Irishman, "we shall see Cape Mattapan -rising from the sea. After that, Athens for a few hours; then coasting -through the Cyclades, close to the mainland often." And glancing over to -the berth, while pretending to be busy with his steamer-trunk, he saw the -great smile of happiness break over the other's face like a sunrise.... - -For it was clear to him that with the approach to Greece, a change -began to come over his companions. It was noticeable chiefly in the -father. The joy that filled the man, too fine and large to be named -excitement, passed from him in radiations that positively seemed to -carry with them a physical extension. This, of course, was purely a -clairvoyant effect upon the mind--O'Malley's divining faculty -visualized the spiritual traits of the man's dilating Self. But, -nevertheless, the truth remained that--somehow he increased. He grew; -became interiorly more active, alive, potent; and of this singular waxing -of the inner spirit something passed outwards and stood with rare dignity -about his very figure. - -And this manifestation of themselves was due to that expansion of -the inner life caused by happiness. The little point of their -personalities they showed normally to the world was but a single facet, a -tip as it were of their whole selves. More lay within, beyond. As with -the rest of the world, a great emotion stimulated and summoned it forth -into activity nearer the surface. Clearly, for these two Greece -symbolized a point of departure of a great hidden passion. Something they -expected lay waiting for them there. Guidance would come thence. - -And, by reflection perhaps as much as by direct stimulation, the same -change made itself felt in himself. Joy caught him--the joy of a -home-coming, long deferred.... - -At the same time, the warning of Dr. Stahl worked in him, if -subconsciously only. He showed this by mixing more with the other -passengers. He chatted with the Captain, who was as pleased with his -big family as though he had personally provided the weather that made -them happy; with the Armenian priest, who was eager to show that he -had read "a much of T'ackeray and Keeplin"; and especially with the -boasting Moscow merchant, who by this time "owned" the smoking-room and -imposed his verbose commonplaces upon one and all with authoritative -self-confidence in six languages--a provincial mind in full display. The -latter in particular held him to a normal humanity; his atmosphere -breathed the wholesome thickness of the majority of humankind--ordinary, -egoistic, with the simplicity of the uninspiring sort. The merchant acted -upon him as a sedative, and that day the Irishman took him in large -doses, allopathically, for his talk formed an admirable antidote to the -stress of that other burning excitement that, according to Stahl, -threatened to disintegrate his personality. - -Though hardly in the sense he intended, the fur-merchant was entirely -delightful--engaging as a child; for, among other marked qualities, he -possessed the unerring instinct of the snob which made him select for -his friends those whose names or position might glorify his banal -insignificance--and his stories were vivid pictorial illustrations of -this useful worldly faculty. O'Malley listened with secret delight, -keeping a grave face and dropping in occasional innocent questions to -heighten the color or increase the output. Others in the circle responded -in kind, feeling the same chord vibrating in themselves. Even the priest, -like a repeating-gun, continually discharged his little secret pride that -Byron had occupied a room in that Venetian monastery where he lived; and -at last O'Malley himself was conscious of an inclination to report his -own immense and recently discovered kinship with a greater soul and -consciousness than his own. After all, he reflected with a deep thrill -while he listened, the desire of the snob was but a crude and simple form -of the desire of the mystic:--to lose one's little self in a Self which -is greater! - -Then, weary of them all and their minute personal interests, he left -the smoking-room and joined the boy again, running absurd races with -him from stern to bow, playing hide-and-seek among the decks, even -playing shuffle-board together. They sweated in the blazing sun and -watched the dance of the sea; caught the wind in their faces with a shout -of joy, or with pointing fingers followed the changing outlines of the -rare, soft clouds that sailed the world of blue above them. There was no -speech between them, and both felt that other things, invisible, swift, -and spirit-footed, whose home is just beyond the edge of life as the -senses report life, played wildly with them. The smoking-room then, -with its occupants so greedy for the things that money connotes--the -furs, champagne, cigars, and heavy possessions that were symbols of the -personal aggrandizement they sought and valued--seemed to the -Irishman like a charnel-house where those about to die sat making -inventories in blind pride of the things they must leave behind. - -It was, indeed, a contrast of Death and Life. For beside him, with -that playing, silent boy, coursed the power of transforming loveliness -which had breathed over the world before her surface knew this swarming -race of men. The life of the Earth knew no need of outward -acquisition, possessing all things so completely in herself. And he--he -was her child--O glory! Joy passing belief! - -"Oh!" he cried once with passion, turning to the fair-haired figure of -youth who stood with him in the bows, meeting the soft wind,--"Oh, -to have heard the trees whispering together in the youth of the world, -and felt one of the earliest winds that ever blew across the cooling -seas!" - -And the boy, not understanding the words, but responding with a -perfect naturalness to the emotion that drove them forth, seized his -hand and with an extraordinarily free motion as of flying, raced with -him down the decks, happy, laughing, hair loose over his face, and with -a singular action of the shoulders as though he somehow--cantered. -O'Malley remembered his vision of the Flying Shapes.... - -Toward the evening, however, the boy disappeared, keeping close to -his father's side, and after dinner both retired early to their cabin. - -And the ship, meanwhile, drew ever nearer to the haunted land. - - - - -XIX - -"Privacy is ignorance." - ---JOSIAH ROYCE - - -Somewhat after the manner of things suffered in vivid dreams, where -surprise is numbed and wonder becomes the perfect password, the Irishman -remembers the sequence of little events that filled the following day. - -Yet his excitement held nothing of the vicious fling of fever; it was -spread over the entire being rather than located hotly in the brain and -blood alone; and it "derived," as it were, from tracts of his personality -usually unstirred, atrophied indeed in most men, that connected him -as by a delicate network of feelers with Nature and the Earth. He came -gradually to feel them, as a man in certain abnormal conditions becomes -conscious of the bodily processes that customarily go on in himself -without definite recognition. - -Stahl could have told him, had he cared to seek the information, that -this fringe of wider consciousness, stretching to the stars and winds -and earth, was the very part that had caused his long unrest and -yearning--the part that knew the Earth as mother and sought the sweet -and savage freedom of what he called with the poverty of modern -terms--primitive. The channels leading toward a state of Cosmic -Consciousness, one with the Earth Life, were being now flushed and -sluiced by the forces emanating from the persons of his new companions. - -And as this new state slowly usurped command, the readjustment of -his spiritual economy thus involved, caused other portions of himself -to sink into temporary abeyance. While it alarmed him, it was too -delicious to resist. He made no real attempt to resist. Yet he knew full -well that the portion sinking thus out of sight was what folk with such -high pride call Reason, Judgment, Common Sense! - -In common with animal, bird, and insect life, all intimately close to -Nature, he began to feel as realities those subtle currents of the -Earth's personality by which the seals know direction in the depths of a -thousand-mile sea, by which the homing pigeons blaze trails through -space, birds fly south, the wild bees know their pathways, and all simple -life, from the Red Indian to the Red Ant, acknowledges the viewless -guidance of the mother's enveloping heart. The cosmic life ran through -his being, lighting signals, offering service, more--claiming leadership. - -With it, however, came no loss of individuality, but rather a powerful -increase of life by means of which for the first time he dreamed of a -fuller existence which should eventually harmonize and combine the -ancient simplicity of soul that claimed the Earth, with the modern -complexity which, indulged alone, rendered the world so ugly and -insignificant...! He experienced an immense, driving push upon what -Bergson has called the _élan vital_ of his being. - -The opening charge of his new discovery, however, was more than -disconcerting, and it is not surprising that he lost his balance. Its -attack and rush were overwhelming. Thus, it was a kind of exalted -speculative wonder lying behind his inner joy that caused his mistakes. -He had imagined, for instance, that the first sight of Greece would bring -some climax of revelation, making clear to what particular type of early -life the spirits of his companions conformed; more, that they would then -betray themselves to one and all for what they were in some effort to -escape, in some act of unrestraint, something, in a word, that would -explain themselves to the world of passengers, and focus them upon the -doctor's microscope forever. - -Yet when Greece showed her first fair rim of outline, his companions -still slept peacefully in their bunks. The anticipated _dénouement_ did -not appear. Nothing happened. It was not the mere sight of so much land -lying upon the sea's cool cheek that could prove vital in an adventure -of such a kind. For the adventure remained spiritual. O'Malley had -merely confused two planes of consciousness. As usual, he saw the thing -"whole" in that extraordinary way to which his imagination alone held -the key; and hence his error. - -Yet the moment has ever remained for him one of vital, stirring -splendor, significant as life or death. He remembers that he was early -on deck and saw the dawn blow up softly from behind the islands with -a fresh, salt wind that blew at the same time like music into his very -heart. Golden clear it rose; and just below, like the petals of some -vast, archetypal flower that gave it birth, the low blue hills of coast -and island opened magically into blossom. The rocky cliffs of Mattapan -slipped past; the smooth, bare slopes of the ancient shore-line followed; -treeless peaks and shoulders, abrupt precipices, summits and ridges all -exquisitely rosy and alive. He had seen Greece before, yet never thus, -and the emotion that invaded every corner of his larger consciousness lay -infinitely deeper than any mere pseudo-classical thrill he had known in -previous years. He saw it, felt it, knew it from within, instead of as a -spectator from without. This dawn-mood of the Earth was also his own; -and upon his spirit, as upon her blue-crowned hills, lay the tide of high -light with its delicate swift blush. He saw it with her--through one of -her opened eyes. - -The hot hours the steamer lay in the Piraeus Harbor were wearisome, -the noise of loading and unloading cargo worse even than at Catania. -While the tourist passengers hurried fussily ashore, carrying guidebooks -and cameras, to chatter among the ruined temples, he walked the decks -alone, dreaming his great dream, conscious that he spun through leagues -of space with the great Being who more and more possessed him. Beyond -the shipping and the masts collected there from all the ports of the -Mediterranean and the Levant, he watched the train puffing slowly to -the station that lay in the shadow of Theseus' Temple, but his eyes at -the same tune strained across the haze toward Eleusis Bay, and while -his ears caught the tramping feet of the long Torchlight Procession, some -power of his remoter consciousness divined the forms of hovering gods, -expressions of his vast Mother's personality with which, in worship, this -ancient people had believed it possible to merge themselves. The -significant truths that lay behind the higher Mysteries, degraded since -because forgotten and misinterpreted, trooped powerfully down into his -mind. For the supreme act of this profound cult, denied by a grosser age -that seeks to telephone to heaven, deeming itself thereby "advanced," lay -in the union of the disciple with his god, the god he worshipped all his -life, and into whose Person he slipped finally at death by a kind of -marriage rite. - -"The gods!" ran again through his mind with passion and delight, as -the letter of his early studies returned upon him, accompanied now for -the first time by the in-living spirit that interpreted them. "The -gods!--Moods of her giant life, manifestations of her spreading -Consciousness pushed outwards, Powers of life and truth and beauty...!" - - * * * * * - -And, meanwhile, Dr. Stahl, sometimes from a distance, sometimes coming -close, kept over him a kind of half-paternal, half-professional -attendance, the Irishman accepting his ministrations without resentment, -almost with indifference. - -"I shall be on deck between two and three in the morning to see the -comet," the German observed to him casually toward evening as they -met on the bridge. "We may meet perhaps--" - -"All right, doctor; it's more than possible," replied O'Malley, realizing -how closely he was being watched. - -In his mind at the moment another sentence ran, the thought growing -stronger and stronger within him as the day declined: - -"It will come tonight--come as an inner catastrophe not unlike that -of death! I shall hear the call--to escape...." - -For he knew, as well as if it had been told to him in so many words, -that the sleep of his two companions all day was in the nature of a -preparation. The fluid projections of themselves were all the time active -elsewhere. Their bodies heavily slumbered; their spirits were out and -alert. Summoned forth by those strange and radiant evocative forces -that even in the dullest minds "Greece" stirs into life, they had -temporarily escaped. Again he saw those shapes of cloud and wind moving -with swift freedom over the long, bare hills. Again and again the image -returned. With the night a similar separation of the personality might -come to himself too. Stahl's warning passed in letters of fire across his -inner sight. With a relief that yet contained uneasiness he watched his -shambling figure disappear down the stairway. He was alone. - - - - -XX - -"To everything that a man does he must give his undivided attention or -his Ego. When he has done this, thoughts soon arise in him, or else a new -method of apprehension miraculously appears.... - -"Very remarkable it is that through this play of his personality man -first becomes aware of his specific freedom, and that it seems to him as -though he awaked out of a deep sleep as though he were only now at home -in the world, and as if the light of day were breaking now over his -interior life for the first time.... The substance of these impressions -which affect us we call Nature, and thus Nature stands in an immediate -relationship to those functions of our bodies which we call senses. -Unknown and mysterious relations of our body allow us to surmise unknown -and mysterious correlations with Nature, and therefore Nature is that -wondrous fellowship into which our bodies introduce us, and which we -learn to know through the mode of its constitutions and abilities." - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Saïs_. Translated by U.C.B. - - -And so, at last, the darkness came, a starry darkness of soft blue -shadows and phosphorescent sea out of which the hills of the Cyclades -rose faint as pictures of floating smoke a wind might waft away like -flowers to the sky. - -The plains of Marathon lay far astern, blushing faintly with their -scarlet tamarisk blossoms. The strange purple glow of sunset upon -Hymettus had long since faded. A hush grew over the sea, now a -marvelous cobalt blue. The earth, gently sleeping, manifested dreamily. -Into the subconscious state passed one half of her huge, gentle life. - -The Irishman, responding to the eternal spell of her dream-state, -experienced in quite a new way the magic of her Night-Mood. He found -it more difficult than ever to realize as separate entities the little -things that moved about through the upper surface of her darkness. -Wings of silver, powerfully whirring, swept his soul onwards to another -place--toward Home. - -And the two worlds intermingled oddly. These little separate "outer -things" going to and fro so busily became as symbols more or less vital, -more or less transparent. They varied according to their simplicity. Some -of them were channels that led directly where he was going; others, -again, had lost all connection with their vital source and center of -existence. To the former belonged the sailors, children, the tired birds -that rested on the ship as they journeyed northwards, swallows, doves, -and little travelers with breasts of spotted yellow that nested in the -rigging; even, in a measure, the gentle, brown-eyed priest; but to the -latter, the noisy, vulgar, beer-drinking tourists, and, especially, -the fur-merchant.... Stahl, interpreter and intermediary, hovered -between--incarnate compromise. - -Escaping from everybody, at length, he made his way into the bows; there, -covered by the stars, he waited. And the thing he waited for--he felt it -coming over him with a kind of massive sensation as little local as heat -or cold--was that disentanglement of a part of his personality from the -rest against which Stahl had warned him. That portion of his complex -personality in which resided desire and longing, matured during these -many years of poignant nostalgia, was now slowly and deliberately -loosening out from the parent center. It was the vehicle of his _Urwelt_ -yearnings; and the _Urwelt_ was about to draw it forth. The Call -was on its way. - -Hereabouts, then, near the Isles of Greece, lay a channel to the Earth's -far youth, a channel for some reason still unclosed. His companions -knew it; he, too, had half divined it. The increased psychic activity of -all three as they approached Greece seemed explained. The sign--would -it be through hearing, sight, or touch?--would shortly come that should -convince. - -That very afternoon Stahl had said--"Greece will betray them," and -he had asked: "Their true form and type?" And for answer the old man -did an expressive thing, far more convincing than words: he bent -forwards and downwards. He made as though to move a moment on all fours. - -O'Malley remembered the brief and vital scene now. The word, however, -persistently refused to come into his mind. Because the word was really -inadequate, describing but partially a form and outline symbolical of far -more,--a measure of Nature and Deity alike. - -And so, as a man dreading the entrance to a great adventure that he -yet desires, the Irishman waited there alone beneath the cloud of -night.... Soft threads of star-gold, trailing the sea, wove with the -darkness a veil that hid from his eyes the world of crude effects. All -memory of the casual realities of modern life that so distressed his -soul, fled far away. The archetypal world, soul of the Earth, swam close -about him, enormous and utterly simple. He seemed alone in some hollow of -the night which Time had overlooked, and where the powers of sea and -air held him in the stretch of their gigantic, changeless hands. In this -hollow lay the entrance to the channel down which he presently might -flash back to that primal Garden of the Earth's first beauty--her Golden -Age... down which, at any rate, the authoritative Call he awaited was -to come.... "Oh! what a power has white simplicity!" - -Wings from the past, serene and tranquil, bore him toward this ancient -peace where echoes of life's brazen clash today could never enter. -Ages before Greece, of course, it had flourished, yet Greece had caught -some flying remnant ere it left the world of men, and for a period had -striven to renew its life, though by poetry but half believed. Over the -vales and hills of Hellas this mood had lingered bravely for a while, -then passed away forever ... and those who dreamed of its remembrance -remain homeless and lonely, seeking it ever again in vain, lost citizens, -rejected by the cycles of vainer life and action that succeeded. - -The Spirit of the Earth, yes, whispered in his ears as he waited covered -by the night and stars. She called him, as though across all the forests -on her breast the long sweet winds went whispering his name. Lying -there upon the coils of thick and tarry rope, the _Urwelt_ caught him -back with her splendid passion. Currents of Earth life, quasi-deific, -gentle as the hands of little children, tugged softly at this loosening -portion of his Self, urging his very lips, as it were, once more to the -mighty Mother's breasts. Again he saw those cloud-like shapes careering -over long, bare hills ... and almost knew himself among them as they -raced with streaming winds ... free, ancient comrades among whom he was -no longer alien and outcast, including his two companions of the steamer. -The early memory of the Earth became his own; as a part of her, he -shared it too. - -The _Urwelt_ closed magnificently about him. Vast shapes of power and -beauty, other than human, once his comrades thus, but since withdrawn -because denied by a pettier age, moved up, huge and dim, across the -sham barriers of time and space, singing the great Earth-Song of welcome -in his ears. The whisper grew awfully.... The Spirit of the Earth -flew close and called upon him with a shout...! - -Then, out of this amazing reverie, he woke abruptly to the consciousness -that some one was approaching him stealthily, yet with speed, through the -darkness. With a start he sat up, peering about him. There was dew on his -clothes and hair. The stars, he saw, had shifted their positions. - -He heard the surge of the water from the vessel's bows below. The -line of the shore lay close on either side. Overhead he saw the black -threads of rigging, quivering with the movement of the ship; the swaying -mast-head light; the dim, round funnels; the confused shadows where -the boats swung--and nearer, moving between the ropes and windlasses, -this hurrying figure whose approach had disturbed him in his gorgeous -dream. - -And O'Malley divined at once that, though in one sense a portion of his -dream, it belonged outwardly to the same world as this long dark steamer -that trailed after him across the sea. A piece of his vision, as it -were, had broken off and remained in the cruder world wherein his body -lay upon these tarry ropes. The boy came up and stood a moment by -his side in silence, then, stooping to the level of his head, he spoke:-- - -"Come," he said in low tones of joy; "come! We wait long for you -already!" - -The words, like music, floated over the sea, as O'Malley took the -outstretched hand and suffered himself to be led quickly toward the -lower deck. He walked at first as in a dream continued after waking; -more than once it seemed as though they stepped together from the -boards and moved through space toward the line of peaked hills that -fringed the steamer's course so close. For through the salt night air ran -a perfume that suggested flowers, earth, and woods, and there seemed -no break in the platforms of darkness that knit sea and shore to the very -substance of the vessel. - - - - -XXI - - -The lights in the saloon were out, the smoking-room empty, the -passengers in bed. The ship seemed entirely deserted. Only, on the -bridge, the shadow of the first officer paced quietly to and fro. Then, -suddenly, as they approached the stern, O'Malley discerned anther -figure, huge and motionless, against the background of phosphorescent -foam; and at the first glance it was exactly as though he had detached -from the background of his mind one of those Flying Outlines upon -the hills--and caught it there, arrested visibly at last. - -He moved along, fairly sure of himself, yet with a tumult of confused -sensations, as if consciousness were transferring itself now more rapidly -to that portion of him which sought to escape. - -Leaning forward, in a stooping posture over the bulwarks, wrapped in the -flowing cape he sometimes wore, the man's back and shoulders married so -intimately with the night that it was hard to determine the dividing line -between the two. So much more of the deck behind him, and of the sky -immediately beyond his neck, was obliterated than by any possible human -outline. Whether owing to obliquity of disturbed vision, tricks of -shadow, or movement of the vessel between the stars and foam, the -Irishman saw these singular emanations spread about him into space. He -saw them this time directly. And more than ever before they seemed in -some way right and comely--true. They were in no sense monstrous; they -reported beauty, though a beauty cloaked in power. - -And, watching him, O'Malley felt that this loosening portion of himself, -as once before in the little cabin, likewise began to grow and spread. -Within some ancient fold of the Earth's dream-consciousness they both lay -caught. In some mighty Dream of her planetary Spirit, dim, immense, -slow-moving, they played their parts of wonder. Already they lay close -enough to share the currents of her subconscious activities. And the -dream, as she turned in her vast, spatial sleep, was a dream of a time -long gone. - -Here, amid the loneliness of deserted deck and night, this illusion of -bulk was more than ever before outwardly impressive, and as he yielded -to the persuasion of the boy's hand, he was conscious of a sudden wild -inclination to use his own arms and legs in a way he had never before -known or dreamed of, yet that seemed curiously familiar. The balance -and adjustment of his physical frame sought to shift and alter; neck and -shoulders, as it were, urged forward; there came a singular pricking in -the loins, a rising of the back, a thrusting up and outwards of the -chest. He felt that something grew behind him with a power that sought to -impel or drive him in advance and out across the world at a terrific -gait; and the hearing of his ears became of a sudden intensely acute. -While his body moved ordinarily, he knew that a part of him that was not -body moved--otherwise, that he neither walked, ran, nor stepped upon -two feet, but--galloped. The motion proclaimed him kin with the flying -shapes upon the hills. At the heart of this portion which sought to -detach itself from his central personality--which, indeed, seemed -already half escaped--he cantered. - -The experience lasted but a second--this swift, free motion of the -escaping Double--then passed away like those flashes of memory that rise -and vanish again before they can be seized for examination. He shook -himself free of the unaccountable obsession, and with the effort of -returning to the actual present, the passing-outwards was temporarily -checked. And it was then, just as he held himself in hand again, that -glancing sideways, he became aware that the boy beside him had, like -his parent, also changed--grown large and shadowy with a similar -suggestion of another splendid outline. The extension already half -accomplished in himself and fully accomplished in the father, was in -process of accomplishment in the smaller figure of the son. Clothed in -the emerged true shape of their inner being they slowly revealed -themselves. It was as bewildering as watching death, and as stern and -beautiful. - -For the boy, still holding his hand, loped along beside him as though -the projection that emanated from him, grown almost physical, were -somehow difficult to manage. - -In the moment of nearer, smaller consciousness that yet remained to -him, O'Malley recalled the significant pantomime of Dr. Stahl two days -before in the cabin. It came with a rush of fire. The warning operated; -his caution instantly worked. He dropped the hand, let the clinging -fingers slip from his own, overcome by something that appalled. For -this, surely, was the inner catastrophe that he dreaded, the radical -internal dislocation of his personality that involved--death. The thing -that had happened, or was happening to these other two, was on the -edge of fulfillment in himself--before he was either ready or had -decided to accept it. - -At any rate he hesitated; and the hesitation, shifting his center of -consciousness back into his brain, checked and saved him. A confused -sense of forces settling back within himself followed; a kind of rush and -scuttle of moods and powers: and he remained temporarily master of -his being, recovering balance and command. Twice already--in that -cabin-scene, as also on the deck when Stahl had seized him--the -moment had come close. Now, again, had he kept hold of the boy's -grasp, that inner transformation, which should later become externalized, -must have completed itself. - -"No, no!" he tried to cry aloud, "for I'm not yet ready!" But his voice -rose scarcely above a whisper. The decision of his will, however, had -produced the desired result. The "illusion," so strangely born, had -passed, at any rate for the time. He knew once more the glory of the -steadfast stars, realized that he walked normally upon a steamer's deck, -heard with welcome the surge of the sea below, and felt the peace of this -calm southern night as they coasted with two hundred sleeping tourists -between the islands and the Grecian mainland.... He remembered the -fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the Canadian drummer.... - -It seemed his feet half tripped, or at least that he put out a hand to -steady himself against the ship's long roll, for the pair of them moved -up to the big man's side with a curious, rushing motion that brought -them all together with a mild collision. And the boy laughed merrily, -his laughter like singing half completed. O'Malley remembers the little -detail, because it serves to show that he was yet still in a state of -intensified consciousness, far above the normal level. It was still "like -walking in my sleep or acting out some splendid dream," as he put it -in his written version. "Half out of my body, if you like, though in no -sense of the words at all half out of my mind!" - - - - -XXII - - -What followed he relates with passion, half confused. Without speaking -the big Russian turned his head by way of welcome, and O'Malley saw that -the proportions of it were magnificent like a fragment of the night and -sky. Though too dark to read the actual expression in the eyes, he -detected their gleam of joy and splendor. The whole presentment of the -man was impressive beyond any words that he could find. Massive, yet -charged with swift and alert vitality, he reared there through the night, -his inner self now toweringly manifested. At any other time, and without -the preparation already undergone, the sight might almost have terrified; -now it only uplifted. For in similar fashion, though lesser in degree, -because the mold was smaller, and hesitation checked it, this very -transformation had been going forward within himself. - -The three of them leaned there upon the rails, rails oddly dwindled -now to the size of a toy steamer, while thus the spirit of the dreaming -Earth swam round and through them, awful in power, yet at the same -time gentle, winning, seductive as wild flowers in the spring. And it was -this delicate, hair-like touch of delight, magical with a supreme and -utterly simple innocence, that made the grandeur of the whole experience -still easily manageable, and terror in it all unknown. - -The Irishman stood on the outside, toward the vessel's stern, next -him the father, beyond, the boy. They touched. A current like a river in -flood swept through all three. - -He, too, was caught within those visible extensions of their -personalities; all again, caught within the consciousness of the Earth. -Across the sea they gazed together in silence--waiting. - -It was the Oro passage, where the mainland hills on the west and the Isle -of Tenos on the east draw close together, and the steamer passes for -several miles so near to Greece that the boom of surf upon the shore is -audible. That night, however, the sea lay too still for surf; it -whispered softly in its sleep; and in its sleep, too, listened. They -heard its multitudinous rush of voices as the surge below raced by--a -giant frieze in which the phosphorescence painted dancing forms and -palely luminous faces. Unsubstantial shapes of foam held hands in -continuous array below the waves, lit by soft-sea-lanterns strung -together along the steamer's sides. - -Yet it was not these glimmering shapes the three of them watched, thus -intently silent. The lens of yearning focused not in sight. Down the -great channel at whose opening they stood, leading straight to the -Earth's old central heart, the message of communion would not be a -visual one. The sensitive fringe of their stretched personalities, -contacting thus actually the consciousness of the planet-soul, would -quiver to a reaction of another kind. This point of union, already -affected, would presently report itself, unmistakably, yet not to the -eyes. The increased acuteness of the Irishman's hearing--a kind of -interior hearing--quickly supplied the key. It was that all -three--listened. - -Some primitive sound of Earth would presently vibrate through their -extended beings with an authoritative sweet thunder not to be denied. -By a Voice, a Call, the Earth would tell them that she heard; that -lovingly she was aware of their presence in her heart. She would call -them, with the voice of _one of their own kind_. - -How strange it all was! Enormous in conception, enormous in distance, -scope, stretch! Yet so tiny, intimate, sweet! And this vast splendor was -to report itself by one of the insignificant little channels by which -men, locked in cramped physical bodies, interpret the giant universe--a -trivial sense-impression! That so terrible a communication could reach -the soul via the quivering of a wee material nerve was on a par with that -other grave splendor--that God can exist in the heart of a child. - -Thus, dimly, yet with an authority that shakes the soul, may little -human hearts divine the Immensities that travel with a thunder of great -glory close about their daily life. Through regions of their subliminal -consciousness, which transcends the restricted physical expression of it -called personality as the moisture of the world transcends a drop of -water, deific presences pass grandly to and fro. - -For here, to this wild-hearted Irishman with the forbidden strain of -the _Urmensch_ in his blood, came the sharp and instant revelation that -the Consciousness is not contained skin-tight around the body. It spread -enormously about him, remote, extended; and in some distant tract of -it this strange occurrence took place. The idea of distance and -extension, of course, were merely intellectual concepts, like that of -Time. For what happened, happened near and close, beside, _within_ his -actual physical person. That physical person, with its brain, however, he -realized, was but a fragment of his total Self. A broken piece of the -occurrence filtered through from beyond and fell upon the deck at his -feet. The rest he divined, seeing it whole. Only the little bit, however, -has he found the language to describe. - -And that for which all three listened was already on the way. Forever -it had been "happening," yet only reached them now because they were -ready and open to it. Events upon the physical plane, he grasped, -represented the last feeble expression of things that had happened -interiorly with a vaster power long ago--and are ever happening still. -This Sound they listened for, coming from the Spirit of the Earth, lay -ever close to men's ears, divinely sweet and splendid. It seemed born -somewhere in the heart of the blue gloom that draped the hills of Greece. -Thence, across the peaked mountains, stretched the immense pipe of -starry darkness that carried it toward them as along a channel. Made -possible of approach by the ancient passion of beauty that Greece once -knew, it ran down upon the world into their hearts, direct from the -Being of the Earth. - -With a sudden rush, it grew nearer, swelling with a draught of sound -that sucked whole spaces of sky and sea and stars with it. It emerged. -They heard, all three. - -Above the pulse and tremble of the steamer's engines, above the -surge and gurgle of the sea, a cry swept toward them from the shore. -Long-drawn, sweetly-penetrating, yet with some strident accent of power -and command, this voice of Earth rushed upon them over the quiet -water--then died away again among the mountains and the night. Its -passage through the sky was torrential. The whole pouring flood of it -dipped back with abrupt swiftness into silence. The Irishman understood -that but an echo of its main volume had come through. - -A deep, convulsive movement ran over the great body at his side, and -at once communicated itself to the boy beyond. Father and son -straightened up abruptly as though the same force lifted both; then -stretched down and forwards over the bulwarks. They seemed to shake -themselves free of something. Neither spoke. Something utterly -overwhelming lay in that moment. For the cry was at once of enchanting -sweetness, yet with a deep and dreadful authority that overpowered. It -invited the very soul. - -A moment of silence followed, and the cry was then repeated, thinner, -fainter, already further away. It seemed withdrawn, sunk more deeply -into the night, higher up, too, floating away northwards into remoter -vales and glens that lay beyond the shore-line. Though still a single -cry, there were distinct breaks of utterance in it this time, as of -words. It was, of a kind--speech: a Message, a Summons, a Command that -somehow held entreaty at its heart. - -And this time the appeal in it was irresistible. Father and son started -forwards as though deliberately pulled; while from himself shot outwards -that loosening portion of his being that all the evening had sought -release. The vehicle of his yearnings, passionately summoned, leaped to -the ancient call of the Earth's eternally young life. This vital essence -of his personality, volatile as air and fierce as lightning, flashed -outwards from its hidden prison where it lay choked and smothered by the -weights and measures of modern life. For the beauty and splendor of that -far voice wrung his very heart and set it free. He knew a quasi-physical -wrench of detachment. A wild and tameless glory fused the fastenings -of ages. - -Only the motionless solidity of the great figure beside him prevented -somehow the complete escape, and made him understand that the Call -just then was not for all three of them, especially not for himself. The -parent rose beside him, massive and stable, secure as the hills which -were his true home, and the boy broke suddenly into happy speech which -was wild and singing. - -He looked up swiftly into his parent's steady visage. - -"Father!" he cried in tones that merged half with the wind, half with -the sea, "it is his voice! Chiron calls--!" His eyes shone like stars, -his young face was alight with joy and passion.--"Go, father, _you_, -or--" - -He stopped an instant, catching the Irishman's eyes upon his own -across the form between them. - -"--or you!" he added with a laughter of delight; "_you_ go!" - -The big figure straightened up, standing back a pace from the rails. -A low sound rolled from him that was like an echo of thunder among -hills. With slow, laborious distinctness it broke off into fragments that -were words, with great difficulty uttered, but with a final authority -that rendered them command. - -"No," O'Malley heard, "you--first. And--carry word--that we--are--on -the way." Staring out across the sea and sky he boomed it deeply. -"You--first. We--follow--!" And the speech seemed to flow from the entire -surface of his body rather than from the lips alone. The sea and air -mothered the syllables. Thus might the Night herself have spoken. - -_Chiron_! The word, with its clue of explanation, flamed about him -with a roar. Was this, then, the type of cosmic life to which his -companions, and himself with them, inwardly approximated...? - -The same instant, before O'Malley could move a muscle to prevent -it, the boy climbed the rails with an easy, vaulting motion that was -swift yet oddly spread, and dropped straight down into the sea. He fell; -and as he fell it was as if the passage through the air drew out a part -of him again like smoke. Whether it was due to the flying cloak, or to -some dim wizardry of the shadows, there grew over him an instantaneous -transformation of outline that was far more marked than anything before. -For as the steamer drew onwards, and the body thus passed in its downward -flight close beneath O'Malley's eyes, he saw that the boy was making the -first preparatory motions of swimming,--movements, however, that were not -the horizontal sweep of a pair of human arms, but rather the vertical -strokes of a swimming animal. He pawed the air. - -The surprise of the whole unexpected thing came upon him with a crash -that brought him back effectually again into himself. That part of him, -already half emerged in similar escape, now flashed back sheath-like -within him. The inner catastrophe he dreaded while desiring it, had -not yet completed itself. - -He heard no splash, for the ship was high out of the water, and the -place where the body met the sea already lay far astern; but when the -momentary arrest of his faculties had passed and he found his voice to -cry for help, the father turned upon him like a lion and clapped a great, -encompassing hand upon his mouth. - -"Quiet!" his deep voice boomed. "It is well--and he--is--safe." - -And across the huge and simple visage ran an expression of such supreme -happiness, while in his act and gesture lay such convincing power, that -the Irishman felt himself overborne and forced to acknowledge another -standard of authority that somehow made the whole thing right. To cry -"man overboard," to stop the ship, throw life-buoys and the rest, was not -only unnecessary, but foolish. The boy was safe; it was well with him; he -was not "lost"... - -"See," said the parent's deep voice, breaking in upon his thoughts as -he drew him to one side with a certain vehemence, "See!" - -He pointed downwards. And there, between them, half in the scuppers, -against their very feet, lay the huddled body upon the deck, the -arms outstretched, the face turned upwards to the stars. - - * * * * * - -The bewilderment that followed was like the confusion which exists -between two states of consciousness when the mind passes from sleep -to waking, or _vice versa_. O'Malley lost that power of attention which -enables a man to concentrate on details sufficiently to recall their -exact sequence afterwards with certainty. - -Two things, however, stood out and he tells them briefly enough: first, -that the joy upon the father's face rendered an offer of sympathy -ludicrous; secondly, that Dr. Stahl was again upon the scene with a -promptness which proved him to have been close at hand all the time. - -It was between two and three in the morning, the rest of the passengers -asleep still, but Captain Burgenfelder and the first officer appeared -soon after and an orderly record of the affair was drawn up formally. The -depositions of the father and of himself were duly taken down in -writing, witnessed, and all the rest. - -The scene in the doctor's cabin remains vividly in his mind: the huge -Russian standing by the door--for he refused a seat--incongruously -smiling in contrast to the general gravity, his mind obviously brought -by an effort of concentration to each question; the others seated round -the desk some distance away, leaving him in a space by himself; the -scratching of the doctor's pointed pen; the still, young outline -underneath the canvas all through the long pantomime, lying upon a couch -at the back where the shadows gathered thickly. And then the gust of -fresh wind that came in with a little song as they opened the door at -the end, and saw the crimson dawn reflected in the dewy, shining boards -of the deck. The father, throwing the Irishman a significant and curious -glance, was out to join it on the instant. - -Syncope, produced by excitement, cause unknown, was the scientific -verdict, and an immediate burial at sea the parent's wish. As the sun -rose over the highlands of Asia Minor it was carried into effect. - -But the father's eyes followed not the drop. They gazed with rapt, -intent expression in another direction where the shafts of sunrise sped -across the sea toward the glens and dales of distant Pelion. At the sound -of the plunge he did not even turn his eyes. He pointed, gathering -O'Malley somehow into the gesture, across the Ægean Sea to where the -shores of north-western Arcadia lay below the horizon, raised his arms -with a huge sweep of welcome to the brightening sky, then turned and -went below without a single word. - -For a few minutes, puzzled and perhaps a little awed, the group of -sailors and ship's officers remained standing with bared heads, then -disappeared silently in their turn, leaving the decks to the sunrise and -the wind. - - - - -XXIII - - -But O'Malley did not immediately return to his own cabin; he yielded to -Dr. Stahl's persuasion and dropped into the armchair he had already -occupied more than once, watching his companion's preparations with the -lamp and coffeepot. - -With his eyes, that is, he watched, staring, as men say, absent-mindedly; -for the fact was, only a little bit of him hovered there about his -weary physical frame. The rest of him was off somewhere else across the -threshold--subliminal: below, with the Russian, beyond with the -traveling spirit of the boy; but the major portion, out deep in space, -reclaimed by the Earth. - -So, at least, it felt; for the circulation of blood in his brain ran low -and physical sensation there was almost none. The driving impulse upon -the outlying tracts of consciousness usually submerged had been -tremendous. - -"That time," he heard Stahl saying in an oddly distant voice from -across the cabin, "you were nearly--out--" - -"You heard? You saw it all?" he murmured as in half-sleep. For it was -an effort to focus his mind even upon simple words. - -The reply he hardly caught, though he felt the significant stare of the -man's eye upon him and divined the shaking of his head. His life still -pulsed and throbbed far away outside his normal self. Complete return -was difficult. He felt all over: with the wind and hills and sea, all his -little personal sensations tucked away and absorbed into Nature. In the -Earth he lay, pervading her whole surface, still sharing her vaster life. -With her he moved, as with a greater, higher, and more harmonious -creation than himself. In large measure the cosmic instincts still swept -these quickened fringes of his deep subconscious personality. - -"You know them now for what they are," he heard the doctor saying at the -end of much else he had entirely missed. "The father will be the next to -go, and then--yourself. I warn you before it is too late. Beware! -And--resist!" - -His thoughts, and with them those subtle energies of the soul that are -the vehicles of thought, followed where the boy had gone. Deep streams of -longing swept him. The journey of that spirit, so singularly released, -drew half his forces after it. Thither the bereaved parent and himself -were also bound; and the lonely incompleteness of his life lay wholly now -explained. That cry within the dawn, though actually it had been calling -always, had at last reached him; hitherto he had caught only -misinterpreted echoes of it. From the narrow body it had called him -forth. Another moment and he would have known complete emancipation; and -never could he forget that glorious sensation as the vital essence tasted -half release. Next time the process should complete itself, and he -would--go! - -"Drink this," he heard abruptly in Stahl's grating voice, and saw him -cross the cabin with a cup of steaming coffee. "Concentrate your mind -now upon the things about you here. Return to the present. And tell me, -too, if you can bring yourself to do so," he added, stooping over -him with the cup, "a little of what you experienced. The return, I know, -is pain. But try--try--" - -"Like a little bit of death, yes," murmured the Irishman. "I feel caught -again and caged--small." He could have wept. This ugly little life! - -"Because you've tasted a moment of genuine cosmic consciousness and now -you feel the limitations of normal personality," Stahl added, more -soothingly. He sat down beside him and sipped his own coffee. - -"Dispersed about the whole earth I felt, deliciously extended and -alive," O'Malley whispered with a faint shiver as he glanced about the -little cabin, noticing the small windows and shut door. "Upholstery" -oppressed him. "Now I'm back in prison again." - -There was silence for a moment. Then presently the doctor spoke, as -though he thought aloud, expecting no reply. - -"All great emotions," he said in lowered tones, "tap the extensions of -the personality we now call subconscious, and a man in anger, in love, in -ecstasy of any kind is greater than he knows. But to you has come, -perhaps, the greatest form of all--a definite and instant merging with -the being of the Earth herself. You reached the point where you _felt_ -the spirit of the planet's life. You almost crossed the threshold--your -extension edged into her own. She bruised you, and you knew--" - -"'Bruised'?" he asked, startled at the singular expression into closer -hearing. - -"We are not 'aware' of our interior," he answered, smiling a little, -"until something goes wrong and the attention is focused. A keen -sensation--pain--and you become aware. Subconscious processes then -become consciously recognized. I bruise your lung for instance; you -become conscious of that lung for the first time, and feel it. You gather -it up from the general subconscious background into acute personal -consciousness. Similarly, a word or mood may sting and stimulate some -phase of your consciousness usually too remote to be recognized. Last -night--regions of your extended Self, too distant for most men to realize -their existence at all, contacted the consciousness of the Earth herself. -She bruised you, and _via_ that bruise caught you up into her greater -Self. You experienced a genuine cosmic reaction." - -O'Malley listened, though hardly to the actual words. Behind the -speech, which was in difficult German for one thing, his mind heard -the rushing past of this man's ideas. They moved together along the -same stream of thought, and the Irishman knew that what he thus heard -was true, at any rate, for himself. And at the same time he recognized -with admiration the skill with which this scientific mystic of a -_Schiffsarzt_ sought to lead him back into the safer regions of his -normal state. Stahl did not now oppose or deny. Catching the wave of the -Celt's experience, he let his thought run sympathetically with it, -alongside, as it were, guiding gently and insinuatingly down to earth -again. - -And the result justified this cunning wisdom; O'Malley returned to -the common world by degrees. For it was enchanting to find his amazing -adventure explained even in this partial, speculative way. Who else -among his acquaintances would have listened at all, much less admitted -its possibility? - -"But, why in particular _me_?" he asked. "Can't everybody know these -cosmic reactions you speak of?" It was his intellect that asked the -foolish question. His whole Self knew the answer beforehand. - -"Because," replied the doctor, tapping his saucer to emphasize each -word, "in some way you have retained an almost unbelievable simplicity -of heart--an innocence singularly undefiled--a sort of primal, -spontaneous innocence that has kept you clean and open. I venture even to -suggest that shame, as most men know it, has never come to you at all." - -The words sank down into him. Passing the intellect that would have -criticized, they nested deep within where the intuition knew them true. -Behind the clumsy language that is, he caught the thought. - -"As if I were a saint!" he laughed faintly. - -Stahl shook his head. "Rather, because you live detached," he replied, -"and have never identified your Self with the rubbish of life. The -channels in you are still open to these tides of larger existence. I wish -I had your courage." - -"While others--?" - -The German hesitated a moment. "Most men," he said, choosing his words -with evident care, "are too grossly organized to be aware that these -reactions of a wider consciousness can be possible at all. Their minute -normal Self they mistake for the whole, hence denying even the -experiences of others. 'Our actual personality may be something -considerably unlike that conception of it which is based on our present -terrestrial consciousness--a form of consciousness suited to, and -developed by, our temporary existence here, _but not necessarily more -than a fraction of our total self_. It is quite credible that our entire -personality is never terrestrially manifest.'" Obviously he quoted. The -Irishman had read the words somewhere. He came back more and more into -the world--correlated, that is, the subconscious with the conscious. - -"Yet consciousness apart from the brain is inconceivable," he interposed, -more to hear the reply than to express a conviction. - -Whether Stahl divined his intention or not, he gave no sign. - -"'We cannot say with any security that the stuff called brain is the -only conceivable machinery which mind and consciousness are able to -utilize: though it is true that we know no other.'" The last phrase he -repeated: "'though it is true that we know no other.'" - -O'Malley sank deeper into his chair, making no reply. His mind clutched -at the words "too grossly organized," and his thoughts ran back for a -moment to his daily life in London. He pictured his friends and -acquaintances there; the men at his club, at dinner parties, in the -parks, at theatres; he heard their talk--shooting--destruction of -exquisite life; horses, politics, women, and the rest; yet good, honest, -lovable fellows all. But how did they breathe in so small a world at all? -Practical-minded specimens of the greatest civilization ever known! He -recalled the heavy, dazed expression on the faces of one or two to whom -he had sometimes dared to speak of those wider realms that were so -familiar to himself.... - -"'Though it is true that we know no other,'" he heard Stahl repeating -slowly as he looked down into his cup and stirred the dregs. - -Then, suddenly, the doctor rose and came over to his side. His eyes -twinkled, and he rubbed his hands vigorously together as he spoke. He -laughed. - -"For instance, I have no longer now the consciousness of that coffee -I have just swallowed," he exclaimed, "yet, if it disagreed with me, my -consciousness of it would return." - -"The abnormal states you mean are a symptom of disorder then?" the -Irishman asked, following the analogy. - -"At present, yes," was the reply, "and will remain so until their -correlation with the smaller conscious Self is better understood. These -belligerent Powers of the larger Consciousness are apt to overwhelm as -yet. That time, perhaps, is coming. Already a few here and there have -guessed that the states we call hysteria and insanity, conditions of -trance, hypnotism, and the like, are not too satisfactorily explained." -He peered down at his companion. "If I could study your Self at close -quarters for a few years," he added significantly, "and under various -conditions, I might teach the world!" - -"Thank you!" cried the Irishman, now wholly returned into his ordinary -self. He could think of nothing else to say, yet he meant the words and -gave them vital meaning. He moved across to another chair. Lighting a -cigarette, he puffed out clouds of smoke. He did not desire to be caught -again beneath this man's microscope. And in his mind he had a sudden -picture of the speculative and experimenting doctor being "requested to -sever his connection" with the great Hospital for the sake of the -latter's reputation. But Stahl, in no way offended, was following his own -thoughts aloud, half speaking to himself. - -"... For a being organized as you are, more active in the outlying -tracts of consciousness than in the centers lying nearer home,--a being -like yourself, I say, might become aware of Other Life and other -personalities even more advanced and highly organized than that of the -Earth." - -A strange excitement came upon him, making his eyes shine. He walked to -and fro, O'Malley watching him, a touch of alarm mingled with his -interest. - -"And to think of the great majority that denies because they are--dead!" -he cried. "Smothered! Undivining! Living in that uninspired fragment -which they deem the whole! Ah, my friend,"--and he came abruptly -nearer--"the pathos, the comedy, the pert self-sufficiency of their dull -pride, the crass stupidity and littleness of their denials, in the eyes -of those like ourselves who have actually known the passion of the larger -experience--! For all this modern talk about a Subliminal Self is woven -round a profoundly significant truth, a truth newly discovered and only -just beginning to be understood. We are much greater than we know, and -there is a vast subconscious part of us. But, what is more important -still, there is a super-consciousness as well. The former represents -what the race has discarded; it is past; but the latter stands for what -it reaches out to in the future. The perfect man you dream of perhaps is -he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast -amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value -and will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and -waiting. But it is the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not -the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriously wait -upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism, and the rest." - -"One leads, though, to the other," interrupted O'Malley quickly. "It -is merely a question of the swing of the pendulum?" - -"Possibly," was the laconic reply. - -"They join hands, I mean, behind my back, as it were." - -"Possibly." - -"This stranger, then, may really lead me forward and not back?" - -"Possibly," again was all the answer that he got. - -For Stahl had stopped short, as though suddenly aware that he had -said too much, betraying himself in the sudden rush of interest and -excitement. The face for a moment had seemed quite young, but now -the flush faded, and the light died out from his eyes. O'Malley never -understood how the change came about so quickly, for in a moment, -it seemed, the doctor was calm again, quietly lighting one of his black -cigars over by the desk, peering at him half quizzingly, half mockingly -through the smoke. - -"So I urge you again," he was saying, as though the rest had been some -interlude that the Irishman had half imagined, "to proceed with the -caution of this sane majority, the caution that makes for safety. Your -friend, as I have already suggested to you, is a direct expression of the -cosmic life of the earth. Perhaps, you have guessed by now, the -particular type and form. Do not submit your inner life too completely to -his guidance. Contain your Self--and resist--while it is yet possible." - -And while he sat on there, sipping hot coffee, half listening to the -words that warned of danger while at the same time they cunningly -urged him forwards, it seemed that the dreams of childhood revived in -him with a power that obliterated this present day--the childhood, -however, not of his mere body, but of his spirit, when the world herself -was young.... He, too, had dwelt in Arcady, known the free life of -splendor and simplicity in some Saturnian Reign; for now this dream, -but half remembered, half believed, though eternally yearned for--dream -of a Golden Age untouched by Time, still there, still accessible, -still inhabited, was actually coming true. - -It surely was that old Garden of innocence and joy where the soul, -while all unvexed by a sham and superficial civilization of the mind, -might yet know growth--a realm half divined by saints and poets, but -to the gross majority forgotten or denied. - -The Simple Life! This new interpretation of it at first overwhelmed. -The eyes of his soul turned wild with glory; the passion that o'er-runs -the world in desolate places was his; his, too, the strength of rushing -rivers that coursed their parent's being. He shared the terror of the -mountains and the singing of the sweet Spring rains. The spread wonder -of the woods of the world lay imprisoned and explained in the daily -hurry of his very blood. He understood, because he felt, the power of -the ocean tides; and, flitting to and fro through the tenderer regions of -his extended Self, danced the fragrance of all the wild flowers that ever -blew. That strange allegory of man, the microcosm, and earth, the -macrocosm, became a sudden blazing reality. The feverish distress, -unrest, and vanity of modern life was due to the distance men had -traveled from the soul of the world, away from large simplicity into the -pettier state they deemed so proudly progress. - -Out of the transliminal depths of this newly awakened Consciousness -rose the pelt and thunder of these magical and enormous cosmic -sensations--the pulse and throb of the planetary life where his little -Self had fringed her own. Those untamed profundities in himself that -walked alone, companionless among modern men, suffering an eternal -nostalgia, at last knew the approach to satisfaction. For when the "inner -catastrophe" completed itself and escape should come--that transfer -of the conscious center across the threshold into this vaster region -stimulated by the Earth--all his longings would be housed at last like -homing birds, nested in the gentle places his yearnings all these years -had lovingly built for them--in a living Nature! The fever of modern -life, the torture and unrest of a false, external civilization that -trained the brain while it still left wars and baseness in the heart, -would drop from him like the symptoms of some fierce disease. The god of -speed and mechanism that ruled the world today, urging men at ninety -miles an hour to enter a Heaven where material gain was only a little -sublimated and not utterly denied, would pass for the nightmare that it -really was. In its place the cosmic life of undifferentiated simplicity, -clean and sweet and big, would hold his soul in the truly everlasting -arms. - -And that little German doctor, sitting yonder, enlightened yet afraid, -seeking an impossible compromise--Stahl could no more stop his going -than a fly could stop the rising of the Atlantic tides. - -Out of all this tumult of confused thought and feeling there rose then -the silver face of some forgotten and passionate loveliness. Apparently -it reached his lips, for he heard his own voice murmuring outside him -somewhere across the cabin:-- - -"The gods of Greece--and of the world--" - -Yet the instant words clothed it, the flashing glory went. The idea -plunged back out of sight--untranslatable in language. Thrilled and -sad, he lay back in his chair, watching the doctor and trying to focus -his mind upon what he was saying. But the lost idea still dived and -reared within him like a shining form, yet never showing more than -this radiant point above the surface. The passion and beauty of it...! -He tried no more to tie a label of modern words about its neck. He let -it swim and dive and leap within him uncaught. Only he understood -better why, close to Greece, his friends had betrayed their inner selves, -and why for the lesser of the two, whose bodily cage was not yet fully -clamped and barred by physical maturity, escape, or return rather, had -been possible, nay, had been inevitable. - - - - -XXIV - - -Stahl, he remembers, had been talking for a long time. The general sense -of what he said reached him, perhaps, but certainly not many of the -words. The doctor, it was clear, wished to coax from him the most -intimate description possible of his experience. He put things crudely -in order to challenge criticism, and thus to make his companion's reason -sit in judgment on his heart. If this visionary Celt would let his -intellect pass soberly and dissectingly upon these flaming states of -wider consciousness he had touched, the doctor would have data of real -value for his own purposes. - -But this discriminating analysis was precisely what the Irishman found -impossible. His soul was too "dispersed" to concentrate upon modern terms -and phrases. These in any case dealt only with the fragments of Self that -manifested through brain and body. The rest could be felt only, never -truly described. Since the beginning of the world such transcendental -experiences had never been translatable in the language of "common" -sense; and today, even, when a few daring minds sought a laborious -classification, straining the resources of psychology, the results were -little better than a rather enticing and suggestive confusion. - -In his written account, indeed, he gives no proper report of what Stahl -tried to say. A gaping hiatus appears in the manuscript, with only -asterisks and numbers that referred to pages of his tumbled notebooks. -Following these indications I came across the skeletons of ideas which -perhaps were the raw material, so to say, of these crude and speculative -statements that the German poured out at him across that cabin--blocks -of exaggeration he flung at him, in the hope of winning some critical -and intelligible response. Like the structure of some giant fairy-tale -they read--some toppling scaffolding that needed reduction in scale -before it could be focused for normal human sight. - -"Nature" was really alive for those who believed--and worshipped; for -worship was that state of consciousness which opens the sense and -provides the channel for this singular interior realization. In very -desolate and lonely places, unsmothered and unstained by men as they -exist today, such expressions of the Earth's stupendous, central vitality -were still possible.... The "Russian" himself was some such fragment, -some such cosmic being, strayed down among men in a form outwardly -human, and the Irishman had in his own wild, untamed heart those -same very tender and primitive possibilities which enabled him to know -and feel it. - -In the body, however, he was fenced off--without. Only by the -disentanglement of his primitive self from the modern development -which caged it, could he recover this strange lost Eden and taste in its -fullness the mother-life of the planetary consciousness which called him -back. This dissociation might be experienced temporarily as a subliminal -adventure; or permanently--in death. - -Here, it seemed, was a version of the profound mystical idea that a -man must lose his life to find it, and that the personal self must be -merged in a larger one to know peace--the incessant, burning nostalgia -that dwells in the heart of every religion known to men: escape from -the endless pain of futile personal ambitions and desires for external -things that are unquenchable because never possible of satisfaction. It -had never occurred to him before in so literal and simple a form. It -explained his sense of kinship with the earth and nature rather than -with men.... - -There followed, then, another note which the Irishman had also -omitted from his complete story as I found it--in this MS. that lay -among the dust and dinginess of the Paddington back-room like some -flaming gem in a refuse heap. It was brief but pregnant--the block of -another idea, Fechner's apparently, hurled at him by the little doctor. - -That, just as the body takes up the fact of the bruised lung into its -own general consciousness, lifting it thereby from the submerged, -unrealized state; and just as our human consciousness can be caught up -again as a part of the earth's; so, in turn, the Planet's own vast -personality is included in the collective consciousness of the entire -Universe--all steps and stages of advance to that final and august -Consciousnss of which they are fragments, projections, manifestations in -Time--GOD. - -And the immense conception, at any rate, gave him a curious, -flashing clue to that passionate inclusion which a higher form of -consciousness may feel for the countless lesser manifestations below it; -and so to that love for humanity as a whole that saviors feel.... - -Yet, out of all this deep flood of ideas and suggestions that somehow -poured about him from the mind of this self-contradictory German, -alternately scientist and mystic, O'Malley emerged with his own smaller -and vivid personal delight that he would presently himself--escape: -escape under the guidance of the big Russian into some remote corner -of his own extended Being, where he would enjoy a quasi-merging with -the Earth-life, and know subjectively at least the fruition of all his -yearnings. - -The doctor had phrased it once that a part of him fluid, etheric or -astral, malleable by desire, would escape and attain to this result. But, -after all, the separation of one portion of himself from the main -personality could only mean being conscious it: another part of it--in -a division usually submerged. - -As Stahl so crudely put it, the Earth had bruised him. He would know -in some little measure the tides of her own huge life, his longings, -loneliness, and nostalgia explained and satisfied. He would find that -fair old Garden. He might even know the lesser gods. - - * * * * * - -That afternoon at Smyrna the matter was officially reported, and so -officially done with. It caused little enough comment on the steamer. -The majority of the passengers had hardly noticed the boy at all, much -less his disappearance; and while many of them landed there for Ephesus, -still more left the ship next day at Constantinople. - -The big Russian, though he kept mostly to his own cabin, was closely -watched by the ship's officers, and O'Malley, too, realized that he was -under observation. But nothing happened; the emptied steamer pursued -her quiet way, and the Earth, unrealized by her teeming freight so busy -with their tiny personal aims, rushed forwards upon her glorious journey -through space. - -O'Malley alone realized her presence, aware that he rushed with her -amid a living universe. But he kept his new sensations to himself. The -remainder of the voyage, indeed, across the Black Sea _via_ Samsoun and -Trebizond, is hazy in his mind so far as practical details are concerned, -for he found himself in a dreamy state of deep peace and would sometimes -sit for hours in reverie, only reminded of the present by certain pricks -of annoyance from the outer world. He had returned, of course, to his own -stateroom, yet felt in such close sympathy with his companion that no -outward expression by way of confidence or explanation was necessary. In -their Subconsciousness they were together and at one. - -The pricks of annoyance came, as may be expected, chiefly from Dr. -Stahl, and took the form of variations of "I told you so." The man was -in a state of almost anger, caused half by disappointment, half by -unsatisfied curiosity. His cargo of oil and water would not mix, yet he -knew not which to throw overboard; here was another instance where -facts refused to tally with the beliefs dictated by sane reason; where -the dazzling speculations he played with threatened to win the day and -destroy the compromise his soul loved. - -The Irishman, however, did not resent his curiosity, though he made -no attempt to satisfy it. He allowed him to become authoritative and -professional, to treat him somewhat as a patient. What could it matter -to him, who in a few hours would land at Batoum and go off with his -guide and comrade to some place where--? The thought he could never -see completed in words, for he only knew that the fulfillment of the -adventure would take place--somewhere, somehow, somewhen--in that space -within the soul of which external space is but an image and a figure. -What takes place in the mind and heart are alone the true events; their -outward expression in the shifting and impermanent shapes of matter is -the least real thing in all the world. For him the experience would be -true, real, authoritative--fact in the deepest sense of the word. -Already he saw it "whole." - -Faith asks no travelers' questions--exact height of mountains, length -of rivers, distance from the sea, precise spelling of names, and so -forth. He felt--the quaint and striking simile is in the written -account--like a man hunting for a pillar-box in a strange city--absurdly -difficult to find, as though purposely concealed by the authorities amid -details of street and houses to which the eye is unaccustomed, yet really -close at hand all the time.... - -But at Trebizond, a few hours before Batoum, Dr. Stahl in his zealous -attentions went too far; for that evening he gave his "patient" a -sleeping-draught in his coffee that caused him to lie for twelve hours on -the cabin sofa, and when at length he woke toward noon, the Customs -officers had been aboard since nine o'clock, and most of the passengers -had already landed. - -Among them, leaving no message, the big Russian had also gone -ashore. And, though Stahl may have been actuated by the wisest and -kindest motives, he was not quite prepared for the novel experience with -which it provided him--namely, of hearing an angry Irishman saying -rapidly what he thought of him in a stream of eloquent language that -lasted nearly a quarter of an hour without a break! - - - - -XXV - - -Although Batoum is a small place, and the trains that leave it during -the day are few enough, O'Malley knew that to search for his friend by -the methods of the ordinary detective was useless. It would have been -also wrong. The man had gone deliberately, without attempting to say -good-bye--because, having come together in the real and inner sense, -real separation was not possible. The vital portion of their beings, -thought, feeling, and desire, were close and always would be. Their -bodies, busy at different points of the map among the casual realities -of external life, could make no change in that. And at the right moment -they would assuredly meet again to begin the promised journey. - -Thus, at least, in some fashion peculiarly his own, was the way the -Irishman felt; and this was why, after the first anger with his German -friend, he resigned himself patiently to the practical business he had in -hand. - -The little incident was characteristically revealing, and shows how -firmly rooted in his imaginative temperament was the belief, the -unalterable conviction rather, that his life operated upon an outer and -an inner plane simultaneously, the one ever reacting upon the other. It -was as if he were aware of two separate sets of faculties, subtly linked, -one carrying on the affairs of the physical man in the "practical" world, -the other dealing with the spiritual economy in the subconscious. To -attend to the latter alone was to be a useless dreamer among men, -unpractical, unbalanced; to neglect it wholly for the former was to be -crassly limited, but half alive; to combine the two in effective -co-operation was to achieve that high level of a successful personality, -which some perhaps term genius, some prophet, and others, saint. It -meant, at any rate, to have sources of inspiration within oneself. - -Thus he spent the day completing what was necessary for his simple -outfit, and put up for the night at one of the little hotels that spread -their tables invitingly upon the pavement, so that dinner may be enjoyed -in full view of one of the most picturesque streams of traffic it is -possible to see. - -The sultry, enervating heat of the day had passed and a cool breeze -came shorewards over the Black Sea. With a box of thin Russian -cigarettes before him he lingered over the golden Kakhetian wine and -watched the crowded street. Knowing enough of the language to bargain -smartly for his room, his pillows, sheets, and samovar, he yet could -scarcely compass conversation with the strangers about him. Of Russian -proper, besides, he heard little; there was a Babel of many tongues, -Armenian, Turkish, Georgian, explosive phrases of Swanetian, soft -gliding Persian words, and the sharp or guttural exclamations of the -big-voiced, giant fellows, all heavily armed, who belonged to the -bewildering tribes that dwelt among the mountains beyond. Occasionally -came a broken bit of French or German; but they strayed in, lost and -bizarre, as fragments from some distant or forgotten world. - -Down the pavement, jostling his elbows, strode the constant, gorgeous -procession of curious, wild, barbaric faces, bearded, with hooked -noses, flashing eyes, burkas flowing; cartridge-belts of silver and ivory -gleaming across chests in the glare of the electric light; bashliks of -white, black, and yellow wool upon the head, increasing the stature; -evil-looking Black Sea knives stuck in most belts, rifles swung across -great supple shoulders, long swords trailing; Turkish gypsies, dark and -furtive-eyed, walking softly in leather slippers--of endless and -fascinating variety, many colored and splendid, it all was. From time to -time a droschky with two horses, or a private carriage with three, -rattled noisily over the cobbles at a reckless pace, stopping with the -abruptness of a practiced skater; and officers with narrow belted waists -like those of women, their full-skirted cloaks reaching half-way down -high boots of shining leather, sprang out to pay the driver and take a -vacant table at his side; and once or twice a body of soldiers, several -hundred strong, singing the national songs with a full-throated vigor, -hoarse, wild, somehow half terrible, passed at a swinging gait away into -the darkness at the end of the street, the roar of their barbaric singing -dying away in the distance by the sea where the boom of waves just caught -it. - -And O'Malley loved it all, and "thrilled" as he watched and listened. -From his hidden self within something passed out and joined it. He felt -the wild pulse of energetic life that drove along with the tumult of it. -The savage, untamed soul in him leaped as he saw; the blood ran faster. -Sitting thus upon the bank of the hurrying stream, he knew himself -akin to the main body of the invisible current further out; it drew him -with it, and he experienced a quickening of all his impulses toward some -wild freedom that was mighty--clean--simple. - -Civilian dress was rare, and noticeable when it came. The shipping agents -wore black alpaca coats, white trousers, and modern hats of straw. A few -ship's officers in blue, with official caps gold-braided, passed in and -out like men without a wedding garment, as distressingly out of the -picture as tourists in check knickerbockers and nailed boots moving -through some dim cathedral aisle. O'Malley recognized one or two from -his own steamer, and turned his head the other way. It hurt. He caught -himself thinking, as he saw them, of Stock Exchanges, two-penny-tubes, -Belgravia dinner parties, private views, "small and earlies," musical -comedy, and all the rest of the dismal and meager program. These -harmless little modern uniforms were worse than ludicrous, for they -formed links with the glare and noise of the civilization he had left -behind, the smeared vulgarity of the big cities where men and women -live in their possessions, wasting life in that worship of external -detail they call "progress"... - -A well-known German voice crashed through his dream. - -"Already at the wine! These Caucasian vintages are good; they really -taste of grapes and earth and flowers. Yes, thanks, I'll join you for a -moment if I may. We only lie three days in port and are glad to get -ashore." - -O'Malley called for a second glass, and passed the cigarettes. - -"I prefer my black cigars, thank you," was the reply, lighting one. -"You push on tomorrow, I suppose? Kars, Tiflis, Erzerum, or somewhere -a little wilder in the mountains, eh?" - -"Toward the mountains, yes," the Irishman said. Dr. Stahl was the only -person he could possibly have allowed to sit next him at such a time. He -had quite forgiven him now, and though at first he felt no positive -welcome, the strange link between the two men quickly asserted itself and -welded them together in that odd harmony they knew in spite of all -differences. They could be silent together, too, without distress or -awkwardness, sure test that at least some portion of their personalities -fused. - -And for a long time they remained silent, watching the surge and -movement of the old, old types about them. They sipped the yellow -wine and smoked. The stars came out; the carriages grew less; from far -away floated a deep sonorous echo now and then of the soldiers singing -by their barracks. Sometimes a steamer hooted. Cossacks swung by. -Often some wild cry rang out from a side street. There were heavy, -unfamiliar perfumes in the air. Presently Stahl began talking about the -Revolution of a few years before and the scenes of violence he had -witnessed in these little streets, the shooting, barricades, bombs thrown -into passing carriages, Cossacks charging down the pavements with -swords drawn, shouting and howling. O'Malley listened with a part of -his mind at any rate. The rest of him was much further away.... He -was up among the mountain fastnesses. Already, it seemed, he knew the -secret places of the mist, the lair of every running wind.... - -Two tall mountain tribesmen swaggered past close to their table; the -thick grey burkas almost swept their glasses. They walked magnificently -with easy, flowing stride, straight from the hips. - -"The earth here," said O'Malley, taking advantage of a pause in the -other's chatter, "produces some splendid types. Look at those two; they -make one think of trees walking--blown along bodily before a wind." -He watched them with admiration as they swung off and disappeared -among the crowd. - -Dr. Stahl, glancing keenly at him, laughed a little. - -"Yes," he said; "brave, generous fellows too as a rule, who will shoot -you for a pistol that excites their envy, yet give their life to save one -of their savage dogs. They're still--natural," he added after a -moment's hesitation; "still unspoiled. They live close to Nature with a -vengeance. Up among the Ossetians on the high saddles you'll find true -Pagans who worship trees, sacrifice blood, and offer bread and salt to -the nature-deities." - -"Still?" asked O'Malley, sipping his wine. - -"Still," replied Stahl, following his example. - -Over the glasses' rims their eyes met. Both smiled, though neither -quite knew why. The Irishman, perhaps, was thinking of the little city -clerks he knew at home, pigeon-breasted, pale-faced, under-sized. One -of these big men, so full of rushing, vigorous life, would eat a dozen at -a sitting. - -"There's something here the rest of the world has lost," he murmured -to himself. But the doctor heard him. - -"You feel it?" he asked quickly, his eyes brightening. "The awful, -primitive beauty--?" - -"I feel--something, certainly," was the cautious answer. He could -not possibly have said more just then; yet it seemed as though he heard -far echoes of that voice that had been first borne to his ears across the -blue Ægean. In the gorges of these terrible mountains it surely sounded -still. These men must know it too. - -"The spell of this strange land will never leave you once you've felt -it," pursued the other quietly, his voice deepening. "Even in the towns -here--Tiflis, Kutais--I have felt it. Hereabouts is the cradle of the -human race, they say, and the people have not changed for thousands -of years. Some of them you'll find"--he hunted for a word, then said -with a curious, shrugging gesture, "terrific." - -"Ah--" said the Irishman, lighting a fresh cigarette from the dying -stump so clumsily that the trembling of the hand was noticeable. - -"And akin most likely," said Stahl, thrusting his face across the table -with a whispering tone, "to that--man--who--tempted you." - -O'Malley did not answer. He drank the liquid golden sunshine in his -glass; his eyes lifted to the stars that watched above the sea; between -the surge of human figures came a little wind from the grim, mysterious -Caucasus beyond. He turned all tender as a child, receiving as with a -shock of sudden strength and sweetness a thousand intimate messages from -the splendid mood of old Mother-Earth who here expressed herself in such -a potent breed of men and mountains. - -He heard the doctor's voice still speaking, as from a distance though:-- - -"For here they all grow with her. They do not fight her and resist. She -pours freely through them; there is no opposition. The channels still lie -open; ... and they share her life and power." - -"That beauty which the modern world has lost," repeated the other -to himself, lingering over the words, and wondering why they expressed -so little of what he really meant. - -"But which will never--_can_ never come again," Stahl completed the -sentence. There was a wistful, genuine sadness in his voice and eyes, and -the sympathy touched the inflammable Celt with fire. It was ever thus -with him. The little man opposite, with the ragged beard, and the bald, -domed head gleaming in the electric light, had laid a card upon the -table, showing a bit of his burning heart. The generous Irishman -responded like a child, laying himself bare. So hungry was he for -comprehension. - -"Men have everywhere else clothed her fair body with their smothering, -ugly clothing and their herded cities," he burst out, so loud that -the Armenian waiter sidled up, thinking he called for wine. "But here -she lies naked and unashamed, sweet in divinity made simple. By Jove! -I tell you, doctor, it burns and sweeps me with a kind of splendid -passion that drowns my little shame-faced personality of the twentieth -century. I could run out and worship--fall down and kiss the grass and -soil and sea--!" - -He drew back suddenly like a wounded animal; his face turned scarlet, -as though he knew himself convicted of an hysterical outburst. Stahl's -eyes had changed even as he spoke the flaming words that struggled so -awkwardly to seize his mood of rapture--a thought the Earth poured -through him for a moment. The bitter, half-mocking smile lay in them, -and on the lips the cold and critical expression of the other Stahl, -skeptic and science-man. A revulsion of feeling caught them both. But to -O'Malley came the thought that once again he had been drawn--was -being coaxed for examination beneath the microscope. - -"The material here," Stahl said presently, with the calm tones of a -dispassionate diagnosis, "is magnificent as you say, uncivilized without -being merely savage, untamed, yet far from crude barbarism. When the -progress of the age gets into this land the transformation will be grand. -When Russia lets in culture, when modern improvements have developed -her resources and trained the wild human forces into useful channels...." - -He went on calmly by the yard, till it was all the Irishman could do -not to dash the wine-glass in his face. - -"Remember my words when you are up in the lonely mountains," he -concluded at length, smiling his queer sardonic smile, "and keep yourself -in hand. Put on the brakes when possible. Your experience will thus -have far more value." - -"And you," replied O'Malley bluntly, so bluntly it was almost rudeness, -"go back to Fechner, and try to save your compromising soul before -it is too late--" - -"Still following those lights that do mislead the morn," Stahl added -gently, breaking into English for a phrase he apparently loved. They -laughed and raised their glasses. - -A long pause came which neither cared to break. The streets were -growing empty, the personality of the mysterious little Black Sea port -folding away into the darkness. The wilder element had withdrawn -behind the shuttered windows. There came a murmur of the waves, but -the soldiers no longer sang. The droschkys ceased to rattle past. The -night flowed down more thickly from the mountains, and the air, moist -with that malarial miasma which makes the climate of this reclaimed -marsh whereon Batoum is built so unhealthy, closed unpleasantly about -them. The stars died in it. - -"Another glass?" suggested Stahl. "A drink to the gods of the Future, -and till we meet again, on your return journey, eh?" - -"I'll walk with you to the steamer," was the reply. "I never care for -much wine. And the gods of the Future will prefer my usual offering, I -think--imaginative faith." - -The doctor did not ask him to explain. They walked down the middle -of the narrow streets. No one was about, nor were there lights in many -windows. Once or twice from an upper story came the faint twanging -of a balalaika against the drone of voices, and occasionally they passed -a little garden where figures outlined themselves among the trees, with -the clink of glasses, laughter of men and girls, and the glowing tips of -cigarettes. - -They turned down toward the harbor where the spars and funnels of -the big steamers were just visible against the sky, and opposite the -unshuttered window of a shop--one of those modern shops that oddly -mar the town with assorted German tinware, Paris hats, and oleographs -indiscriminately mingled--Stahl stopped a moment and pointed. They -moved up idly and looked in. From the shadows of the other side, well -hidden, an armed patrol eyed them suspiciously, though they were not -aware of it. - -"It was before a window like this," remarked Stahl, apparently casually, -"that I once in Tiflis overheard two mountain Georgians talking -together as they examined a reproduction of a modern picture--Böcklin's -'Centaur.' They spoke in half whispers, but I caught the trend of -what they said. You know the picture, perhaps?" - -"I've seen it somewhere, yes," was the short reply. "But what were they -saying?" He strove to keep his voice commonplace and casual like his -companion's. - -"Oh, just discussing it together, but with a curious stretched interest," -Stahl went on. "One asked, 'What does it say?' and pointed to the -inscription underneath. They could not read. For a long time they stared -in silence, their faces grave and half afraid. 'What is it?' repeated the -first one, and the other, a much older man, heavily bearded and of giant -build, replied low, 'It's what I told you about'; there was awe in his -tone and manner; 'they still live in the big valley of the rhododendrons -beyond--' mentioning some lonely uninhabited region toward Daghestan; -'they come in the spring, and are very swift and roaring....You must -always hide. To see them is to die. But they cannot die; they are of the -mountains. They are older, older than the stones. And the dogs will warn -you, or the horses, or sometimes a great sudden wind, though you must -never shoot.' They stood gazing in solemn wonder for minutes...till at -last, realizing that their silence was final, I moved away. There were -manifestations of life in the mountains, you see, that they had seen and -knew about--old forms akin to that picture apparently." - -The patrol came out of his shadows, and Stahl quickly drew his -companion along the pavement. - -"You have your passport with you?" he asked, noticing the man behind -them. - -"It went to the police this afternoon. I haven't got it back yet." -O'Malley spoke thickly, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. How -much he welcomed that casual interruption of the practical world he -could never explain or tell. For the moment he had felt like wax in the -other's hands. He had dreaded searching questions, and felt unspeakably -relieved. A minute more and he would have burst into confession. - -"You should never be without it," the doctor added. "The police here -are perfect fiends, and can cause you endless inconvenience." - -O'Malley knew it all, but gladly seized the talk and spun it out, asking -innocent questions while scarcely listening to the answers. They -distanced the patrol and neared the quays and shipping. In the darkness -of the sky a great line showed where the spurs of the Lesser Caucasus -gloomed huge and solemn to the East and West. At the gangway of the -steamer they said good-bye. Stahl held the Irishman's hand a moment -in his own. - -"Remember, when you know temptation strong," he said gravely, though a -smile was in the eyes, "the passwords that I now give you: Humanity and -Civilization." - -"I'll try." - -They shook hands warmly enough. - -"Come home by this steamer if you can," he called down from the deck. -"And keep to the middle of the road on your way back to the hotel. It's -safer in a town like this." O'Malley divined the twinkle in his -eyes as he said it. "Forgive my many sins," he heard finally, "and when -we meet again, tell me your own...." The darkness took the sentence. -But the word the Irishman took home with him to the little hotel was -the single one--Civilization: and this, owing to the peculiar -significance of intonation and accent with which this bewildering and -self-contradictory being had uttered it. - - - - -XXVI - - -He walked along the middle of the street as Stahl had advised. He -would have done so in any case, unconsciously, for he knew these towns -quite as well as the German did. Yet he did not walk alone. The entire -Earth walked with him, and personal danger was an impossibility. A -dozen ruffians might attack him, but none could "take" his life. - -How simple it all seemed, yet how utterly beyond the reach of -intelligible description to those who have never felt it--this sudden -surge upwards, downwards, all around and about of the vaster -consciousness amid which the sense of normal individuality seemed but a -tiny focused point. That loss of personality he first dreaded as an -"inner catastrophe" appeared to him now for what it actually was--merely -an extinction of some phantasmal illusion of self into the only true -life. Here, upon the fringe of this wonder-region of the Caucasus, the -spirit of the Earth still manifested as of old, reached out lovingly to -those of her children who were simple enough to respond, ready to fold -them in and heal them of the modern, racking fevers which must otherwise -destroy them.... The entire sky of soft darkness became a hand that -covered him, and stroked him into peace; the perfume that wafted down -that narrow street beside him was the single, enveloping fragrance of -the whole wide Earth herself; he caught the very murmur of her splendid -journey through the stars. The certitude of some state of boundless being -flamed, roaring and immense, about his soul.... - -And when he reached his room, a little cell that shut out light and -air, he met that sinister denial of the simple life which, for him at -least, was the true Dweller on the Threshold. Crashing in to it he -choked, as it were, and could have cried aloud. It gripped and caught him -by the throat--the word that Stahl--Stahl who understood even while he -warned and mocked and hesitated himself--had flung so tauntingly -upon him from the decks--Civilization. - -Upon his table lay by chance--the Armenian hotel-keeper had -evidently unearthed it for his benefit--a copy of a London halfpenny -paper, a paper that feeds the public with the ugliest details of all the -least important facts of life by the yard, inventing others when the -supply is poor. He read it over vaguely, with a sense of cold distress -that was half pain, half nausea. Somehow it stirred his sense of humor; -he returned slowly to his normal, littler state. But it was not the -contrast which made him smile; rather was it the chance juxtaposition of -certain of the contents; for on the page facing the accounts of railway -accidents, of people burned alive, explosions, giant strikes, crumpled -air-men and other countless horrors which modern inventions offered upon -the altar of feverish Progress, he read a complacently boastful leader -that extolled the conquest of Nature men had learned _by speed_. The -ability to pass from one point to another across the skin of the globe in -the least possible time was sign of the development of the human soul. - -The pompous flatulence of the language touched bathos. He thought -of the thousands who had read both columns and preened themselves -upon that leader. He thought how they would pride themselves upon -the latest contrivance for speeding their inert bodies from one point to -another "annihilating distance"; upon being able to get from suburbia -to the huge shops that created artificial wants, then filled them; from -the pokey villas with their wee sham gardens to the dingy offices; from -dark airless East End rooms to countless factories that pour out -semifraudulent, unnecessary wares upon the world, explosives and weapons -to destroy another nation, or cheapjack goods to poison their own--all -in a few minutes less than they could do it the week before. - -And then he thought of the leisure of the country folk and of those -who knew how to be content without external possessions, to watch the -sunset and the dawn with hearts that sought realities; sharing the -noble slowness of the seasons, the gradual growth of flowers, trees, -and crops, the unhurried dignity of Nature's grand procession, the -repose-in-progress of the Mother-Earth. - -The calmness of the unhastening Earth once more possessed his soul -in peace. He hid the paper, watching the quiet way the night beyond -his window buried it from sight... - -And through that open window came the perfume and the mighty hand of -darkness slowly. It seemed to this imaginative Irishman that he caught a -sound of awful laughter from the mountains and the sea, a laughter that -brought, too, a wave of sighing--of deep and old-world sighing. - -And before he went to sleep he took an antidote in the form of a -page from that book that accompanied all his travels, a book which was -written wholly in the open air because its message refused to come to -the heart of the inspired writer within doors, try as he would, the "sky -especially containing for me the key, the inspiration--" - -And the fragment that he read expressed a little bit of his own thought -and feeling. The seer who wrote it looked ahead, naming it "After -Civilization," whereas he looked back. But they saw the same vision; -the confusion of time was nothing:-- - -In the first soft winds of spring, while snow yet lay on the ground-- -Forth from the city into the great woods wandering, -Into the great silent white woods where they waited in their beauty and - majesty -For man their companion to come: -There, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilizations, -Slowly out of the ruins of the past - -Out of the litter and muck of a decaying world, -Lo! even so -I saw a new life arise. -O sound of waters, jubilant, pouring, pouring--O hidden song in the - hollows! -Secret of the Earth, swelling, sobbing to divulge itself! -Slowly, building, lifting itself up atom by atom, -Gathering itself round a new center--or rather round the world—old - center once more revealed-- -I saw a new life, a new society, arise. -Man I saw arising once more to dwell with Nature; -(The old old story--the prodigal son returning, so loved, -The long estrangement, the long entanglement in vain things)-- -The child returning to its home--companion of the winter woods once - more-- -Companion of the stars and waters--hearing their words at first-hand - (more than all science ever taught)-- -The near contact, the dear dear mother so close--the twilight sky - and the young tree-tops against it; -The few needs, the exhilarated radiant life--the food and population - question giving no more trouble; -No hurry more, no striving one to over-ride the other: - ... man the companion of Nature. -Civilization behind him now--the wonderful stretch of the past; -Continents, empires, religions, wars, migrations--all gathered up in him; -The immense knowledge, the vast winged powers--to use or not to use--... - -And as he fell asleep at length it seemed there came a sound of hushed -huge trampling underneath his window, and that when he rose to listen, -his big friend from the steamer led him forth into the darkness, that -those shapes of Cloud and Wind he now so often saw, companioned them -across the heights of the night toward some place in the distant -mountains where light and flowers were, and all his dream of years most -exquisitely fulfilled.... - -He slept. And through his sleep there dropped the words of that old -tribesman from the wilderness: "They come in the spring... and are -very swift and roaring. They are older, older than the stones. They -cannot die... they are of the mountains, and you must hide." - -But the dream-consciousness knows no hiding; and though memory -failed to report with detail in the morning, O'Malley woke refreshed -and blessed, knowing that companionship awaited him, and that once -he found the courage to escape completely, the Simple Life of Earth -would claim him in full consciousness. - -Stahl with his little modern "Intellect" was no longer there to hinder -and prevent. - - - - -XXVII - -"Far, very far, steer by my star, -Leaving the loud world's hurry and clamor, -In the mid-sea waits you, maybe, -The Isles of Glamour, where Beauty reigns. -From coasts of commerce and myriad-marted -Towns of traffic by wide seas parted, -Past shoals unmapped and by reefs uncharted, -The single-hearted my isle attains. - -"Each soul may find faith to her mind, -Seek you the peace of the groves Elysian, -Or the ivy twine and the wands of vine, -The Dionysian, Orphic rite? -To share the joy of the Maenad's leaping -In frenzied train thro' the dusk glen sweeping, -The dew-drench'd dance and the star-watch'd sleeping, -Or temple keeping in vestal white? - -"Ye who regret suns that have set, -Lo, each god of the ages golden, -Here is enshrined, ageless and kind, -Unbeholden the dark years through. -Their faithful oracles yet bestowing, -By laurels whisper and clear streams flowing, -Or the leafy stir of the Gods' own going, -In oak trees blowing, may answer you!" - ---From PEREGRINA'S SONG - - -For the next month Terence O'Malley possessed his soul in patience; -he worked, and the work saved him. That is to say it enabled him to -keep what men call "balanced." Stahl had--whether intentionally or -not he was never quite certain--raised a tempest in him. More accurately, -perhaps, he had called it to the top, for it had been raging deep -down ever since he could remember, or had begun to think. - -That the earth might be a living, sentient organism, though too vast -to be envisaged as such by normal human consciousness, had always been a -tenet of his imagination's creed. Now he knew it true, as a dinner-gong -is true. That deep yearnings, impossible of satisfaction in the external -conditions of ordinary life, could know subjective fulfillment in the -mind, had always been for him poetically true, as for any other poet: now -he realized that it was literally true for some outlying tract of -consciousness usually inactive, termed by some transliminal. Spiritual -nostalgia provided the channel, and the transfer of consciousness -to this outlying tract, involving, of course, a trance condition of -the usual self, indicated the way--that was all. - -Again, his mystical temperament had always seen objects as forces -which from some invisible center push outwards into visible shape--as -bodies: bodies of trees, stones, flowers, men, women, animals; and -others but partially pushed outwards, still invisible to limited physical -sight at least, either too huge, too small, or too attenuated for vision. -Whereas now, as a result of Stahl and Fechner combined, it flamed into -him that this was positively true; more--that there was a point in his -transliminal consciousness where he might "contact" these forces before -they reached their cruder external expression as bodies. Nature, in this -sense, had always been for him alive, though he had allowed himself -the term by a long stretch of poetic sympathy; but now he knew that it -was actually true, because objects, landscapes, humans, and the rest, -were verily aspects of the collective consciousness of the Earth, moods -of her spirit, phases of her being, expressions of her deep, pure, -passionate "heart"--projections of herself. - -He pondered lingeringly over this. Common words revealed their open faces -to him. He saw the ideas behind language, saw them naked. Repetition had -robbed them of so much that now became vital, like Bible phrases that too -great familiarity in childhood kills for all subsequent life as -meaningless. His eyes were opened perhaps. He took a flower into his mind -and thought about it; really thought; meditated lovingly. A flower was -literally projected by the earth so far as its form was concerned. Its -roots gathered soil and earth-matter, changing them into leaves and -blossoms; its leaves again, took of the atmosphere, also a part of the -earth. It was projected by the earth, born of her, fed by her, and at -"death" returned into her. But this was its outward and visible form -only. The flower, for his imaginative mind, was a force made visible -as literally as a house was a force the mind of the architect made -visible. In the mind, or consciousness of the Earth this flower first lay -latent as a dream. Perhaps, in her consciousness, it nested as that which -in us corresponds to a little thought.... And from this he leaped, as the -way ever was with him, to bigger "projections"--trees, atmosphere, -clouds, winds, some visible, some invisible, and so to a deeper yet -simpler comprehension of Fechner's thundering conception of human beings -as projections. Was he, then, literally, a child of the Earth, mothered -by the whole magnificent planet...? All the world akin--that seeking for -an eternal home in every human heart explained...? And were there--had -there been rather--these other, vaster projections Stahl had adumbrated -with his sudden borrowed stretch of vision--forces, thoughts, moods of -her hidden life invisible to sight, yet able to be felt and known -interiorly? - -That "the gods" were definitely knowable Powers, accessible to any -genuine worshipper, had ever haunted his mind, thinly separated only -from definite belief: now he understood that this also had been true, -though only partially divined before. For now he saw them as the rare -expressions of the Earth's in the morning of her life. That he might ever -come to know them close made him tremble with a fearful joy, the idea -flaming across his being with a dazzling brilliance that brought him -close to that state of consciousness termed ecstasy. And that in certain -unique beings, outwardly human like his friend, there might still survive -some primitive expression of the Earth-Soul, lesser than the gods, and -intermediate as it were, became for him now a fact--wondrous, -awe-inspiring, even holy, but still a fact that he could grasp. - -He had found one such; and Stahl, by warnings that fought with urging -invitation at the same time, had confirmed it. - -It was singular, he reflected, how worship had ever turned for him a -landscape or a scene enchantingly alive. Worship, he now understood, -of course invited "the gods," and was the channel through which their -manifestation became possible to the soul. All the gods, then, were -accessible in this interior way, but Pan especially--in desolate places -and secret corners of a wood.... He remembered dimly the Greek idea -of worship in the Mysteries: that the worshipper knew actual temporary -union with his deity in ecstasy, and at death went permanently into his -sphere of being. He understood that worship was au fond a desire for -loss of personal life--hence its subtle joy; and a fear lest it be -actually accomplished--whence its awe and wonder. - -Some glorious, winged thing moved now beside him; it held him by -the hand. The Earth possessed him; and the whole adventure, so far as -he can make it plain, was an authoritative summons to the natural, -Simple Life. - -For the next month, therefore, O'Malley, unhurrying, blessed with a -deeper sense of happiness than he had ever known before, dismissed -the "tempest" from his surface consciousness, and set to work to gather -the picturesque impressions of strange places and strange peoples that -the public liked to read about in occasional letters of travel. And by -the time May had passed into June he had moved up and down the Caucasus, -observing, learning, expanding, and gathering in the process through -every sense--through the very pores of his skin almost--draughts of a new -and abundant life that is to be had there merely for the asking. - -That modification of the personality which comes even in cities to all -but the utterly hidebound--so that a man in Rome finds himself not quite -the same as he was in London or in Paris a few days before--went forward -in him on a profounder scale than anything he had known hitherto. Nature -fed, stimulated and called him with a passionate intimacy that destroyed -all sense of loneliness, and with a vehement directness of attack that -simply charged him to the brim with a new joy of living. His vitality, -powers, even his physical health, stood at their best and highest. The -country laid its spell upon him, in a word; and if he expresses it thus -with some intensity it was because life came to him so. His record is the -measure of his vision. Those who find exaggeration in it merely confess -thereby their own smaller capacity of living. - -Here, as he wandered to and fro among these proud, immense, secluded -valleys, through remote and untamed forests, and by the banks of wild -rivers that shook their flying foam across untrodden banks, he wandered -at the same time deeper and ever deeper into himself, toward a point -where he lost touch with all that constituted him "modern," or held him -captive in the spirit of today. Nearer and ever nearer he moved into some -tremendous freedom, some state of innocence and simplicity that, while -gloriously unrestrained, yet knew no touch of license. Dreams had -whispered of it; childhood had fringed its frontiers; longings had even -mapped it faintly to his mind. But now he breathed its very air and knew -it face to face. The Earth surged wonderfully about him. - -With his sleeping-bag upon a small Caucasian horse, a sack to hold -his cooking things, a pistol in his belt, he wandered thus for days, -sleeping beneath the stars, seeing the sunset and the dawn, drenched in -new strength and wonder all the time. Here he touched deeper reaches -of the Earth that spoke of old, old things, that yet were still young -because they knew not change. He walked in the morning of the world, -through her primal fire and dew, when all was a first and giant garden. - -The advertised splendors of other lands, even of India, Egypt, and -the East, seemed almost vulgar beside this country that had somehow -held itself aloof, unstained and clean. The civilization of its little -towns seemed but a coated varnish that an hour's sun would melt away; the -railway, crawling along the flanks of the great range, but a ribbon of -old iron pinned on that, with the first shiver of those giant sides, -would split and vanish. - -Here, where the Argonauts once landed, the Golden Fleece still shone o' -nights in the depths of the rustling beech woods; along the shores of -that old Phasis their figures might still be seen, tall Jason in the -lead, erect and silvery, passing o'er the shining, flowered fields upon -their quest of ancient beauty. Further north from this sunny Colchian -strand rose the peak of Kasbek, gaunt and desolate pyramid of iron, -"sloping through five great zones of climate," whence the ghost of -Prometheus still gazed down from his "vast frozen precipice" upon a world -his courage would redeem. For somewhere here was the cradle of the human -race, fair garden of some Edened life before the "Fall," when the Earth -sang for joy in her first, golden youth, and her soul expressed itself in -mighty forms that remain for lesser days but a faded hierarchy of -visioned gods. - -A living Earth went with him everywhere, with love that never breathed -alarm. It seemed he felt her very thoughts within himself--thoughts, -however, that now no longer married with a visible expression as shapes. - -Among these old-world tribes and peoples with their babble of difficult -tongues, wonder and beauty, terror and worship, still lay too deeply -buried to have as yet externalized themselves in mental forms as legend, -myth, and story. In the blood ran all their richness undiluted. Life was -simple, full charged with an immense delight. At home little cocksure -writers in little cocksure journals, pertly modern and enlightened, might -dictate how far imaginative vision and belief could go before they -overstepped the limits of an artificial schedule; but here "everything -possible to be believed was still an image of truth," and the stream of -life flowed deeper than all mere intellectual denials. - -A little out of sight, but thinly veiled, the powers that in this haunted -corner of the earth, too strangely neglected, pushed outwards into men -and trees, into mountains, flowers, and the rest, were unenslaved and -intensely vital. In his blood O'Malley knew the primal pulses of the -world. - -It was irresistibly seductive. Whether he slept with the Aryan -Ossetians upon the high ridges of the central range, or shared the stone -huts of the mountain Jews, unchanged since Bible days, beyond the -Suram heights, there came to all his senses the message of that Golden -Age his longings ever sought--the rush and murmur of the _Urwelt_ -calling. - -And so it was, about the first week in June that lean, bronzed, and -in perfect physical condition, this wandering Irishman found himself -in a little Swanetian hamlet beyond Alighir, preparing with a Georgian -peasant-guide to penetrate yet deeper into the mountain recesses and -feed his heart with what he found of loneliness and beauty. - -This region of Imerethia, bordering on Mingrelia, is smothered -beneath an exuberance of vegetation almost tropical, blue and golden -with enormous flowers, tangled with wild vines, rich with towering soft -beech woods, and finally, in the upper sections, ablaze with leagues of -huge rhododendron trees in blossom that give whole mountain-sides -the aspect of a giant garden, flowering amid peaks that even dwarf the -Alps. For here the original garden of the world survives, run wild with -pristine loveliness. The prodigality of Nature is bewildering, almost -troubling. There are valleys, rarely entered by the foot of man, where -monstrous lilies, topping a man on foot and even reaching to his -shoulder on horseback, have suggested to botanists in their lavish -luxuriance a survival of the original flora of the world. A thousand -flowers he found whose names he had never heard of, their hues and -forms as strangely lovely as those of another planet. The grasses alone -in scale and mass were magnificent. While, in and out of all this -splendor, less dense and voluminous only than the rhododendron -forests, ran scattered lines of blazing yellow--the crowding clusters of -azalea bushes that scented the winds beyond belief. - -Beyond this region of extravagance in size and color, there ran -immense bare open slopes of smooth turf that led to the foot of the -eternal snowfields, with, far below, valleys of prodigious scale and -steepness that touched somehow with disdain all memory of other -mountain ranges he had ever known. - -And here it was this warm June evening--June 15th it was--while packing -his sack with cheese and maize-flour in the dirty yard of a so-called -"post-house," more hindered than helped by his Georgian guide, that he -realized the approach of a familiar, bearded figure. The figure emerged. -There was a sudden clutch and lift of the heart ... then a rush of wild -delight. There stood his Russian steamer-friend, part of the scale and -splendor, as though grown out of the very soil. He occupied in a flash -the middle of the picture. He gave it meaning. He was part of it, exactly -as a tree or big grey boulder were part of it. - - - - -XXVIII - -"Seasons and times; Life and Fate--all are remarkably rhythmic, metric, -regular throughout. In all crafts and arts, in all machines, in organic -bodies, in our daily occupations everywhere there is rhythm, meter, -accent, melody. All that we do with a certain skill unnoticed, we do -rhythmically. There is rhythm everywhere; it insinuates itself -everywhere. All mechanism is metric, rhythmic. There must be more in it -than this. Is it merely the influence of inertia?" - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - - -Notwithstanding the extent and loneliness of this wild country, -coincidence seemed in no way stretched by the abrupt appearance; for -in a sense it was not wholly unexpected. There had been certain -indications that the meeting again of these two was imminent. The -Irishman had never doubted they would meet. But something more than mere -hints or warnings, it seemed, had prepared him. - -The nature of these warnings, however, O'Malley never fully disclosed. -Two of them he told to me by word of mouth, but there were others he -could not bring himself to speak about at all. Even the two he mentioned -do not appear in his written account. His hesitation is not easy to -explain, unless it be that language collapsed in the attempt to describe -occurrences so remote from common experience. This may be so, although he -grappled not unsuccessfully with the rest of the amazing adventure. At -any rate I could never coax from him more than the confession that there -_were_ other things that had brought him hints. Then came a laugh, a -shrug of the shoulders, an expression of confused bewilderment in eyes -and manner and--silence. - -The two he spoke of I report as best I can. On the roof of that London -apartment-house where so many of our talks took place beneath the -stars and to the tune of bustling modern traffic, he told them to me. -Both were consistent with his theory that he was becoming daily more -active in some outlying portion of his personality--knowing experiences -in a region of extended consciousness stimulated so powerfully -by his strange new friend. - -Both, moreover, brought him one and the same conviction that he -was no longer--alone. For some days past he had realized this. More -than his peasant guide accompanied him. He was both companioned -and--observed. - -"A dozen times," he said, "I thought I saw him, and a dozen times I -was mistaken. But my mind looked for him. I knew that he was -somewhere close." He compared the feeling to that common experience -of the streets when a friend, not known to be near, or even expected, -comes abruptly into the thoughts, so that numberless individuals may -trick the sight with his appearance before he himself comes suddenly -down the pavement. His approach has reached the mind before his mere -body turns the corner. "Something in me was aware of his approach," -he added, "as though his being were sending out feelers in advance to -find me. They reached me first, I think"--he hesitated briefly, hunting -for a more accurate term he could not find--"in dream." - -"You dreamed that he was coming, then?" - -"It came first in dream," he answered; "only when I woke the dream -did not fade; it passed over into waking consciousness, so that I could -hardly tell where the threshold lay between the two. And, meanwhile, I -was always expecting to see him at every turn of the trail almost; a -little higher up the mountain, behind a rock, or standing beside a tree, -just as in the end I actually did see him. Long before he emerged in this -way, he had been close about me, guiding, waiting, watching." - -He told it as a true thing he did not quite expect me to believe. Yet, -in a sense, _his_ sense, I could and did believe it. It was so wholly -consistent with the tenor of his adventure and the condition of abnormal -receptivity of mind. For his stretched consciousness was in a state of -white sensitiveness whereon the tenderest mental force of another's -thought might well record its signature. Acutely impressionable he was -all over. Physical distance was of as little, or even of less, account to -such forces as it is to electricity. - -"But it was more than the Russian who was close," he added quietly -with one of those sentences that startled me into keen attention. "He -was there--with others--of his kind." - -And then, hardly pausing to take breath, he plunged, as his manner -was, full tilt into the details of this first experience that thrilled my -hedging soul with an astonishing power of conviction. As always when -his heart was in the words, the scenery about us faded and I lived the -adventure with him. The cowled and hooded chimneys turned to trees, -the stretch of dim star-lit London Park became a deep Caucasian vale, -the thunder of the traffic was the roaring of the snow-fed torrents. The -very perfume of strange flowers floated in the air. - -They had been in their blankets, he and his peasant guide, for hours, -and a moon approaching the full still concealed all signs of dawn, when -he woke out of deep sleep with the odd sensation that it was only a part -of him that woke. One portion of him was in the body, while another -portion was elsewhere, manifesting with ease and freedom in some state -or region whither he had traveled in his sleep--where, moreover, he -had not been alone. - -And close about him in the trees was--movement. Yes! Through and -between the scattered trunks he saw it still. - -With eyes a little dazed, the active portion of his brain perceived this -processing movement passing to and fro across the glades of moonlight -beneath the steady trees. For there was no wind. The shadows of the -branches did not stir. He saw swift running shapes, vigorous yet silent, -hurrying across the network of splashed silver and pools of black in -some kind of organized movement that was circular and seemed not due to -chance. Arranged it seemed and ordered; like the regulated revolutions -of a set and whirling measure. - -Perhaps twenty feet from where he lay was the outer fringe of what -he discerned to be this fragment of some grand gamboling dance or -frolic; yet discerned but dimly, for the darkness combined with his -uncertain vision to obscure it. - -And the shapes, as they sped across the silvery patchwork of the moon, -seemed curiously familiar. Beyond question he recognized and knew them. -For they were akin to those shadowy emanations seen weeks ago upon the -steamer's after-deck, to that "messenger" who climbed from out the sea -and sky, and to that form the spirit of the boy assumed, set free in -death. They were the flying outlines of Wind and Cloud he had so often -glimpsed in vision, racing over the long, bare, open hills--at last come -near. - -In the moment of first waking, when he saw them clearest, he declares -with emphasis that he _knew_ the father and the boy were among them. -Not so much that he saw them actually for recognition, but rather that -he felt their rushing presences; for the first sensation on opening his -eyes was the conviction that both had passed him close, had almost -touched and called him. Afterwards he searched in vain among the -flying forms that swept in the swift succession of their leaping dance -across the silvery pathways. While varying in size all were so similar. - -His description of them is confused a little, for he admits that he -could never properly focus them in steady sight. They slipped with a -melting swiftness under the eye; the moment one seemed caught in vision -it passed on further and the next was in its place. It was like -following a running wave-form on the sea. He says, moreover, that while -erect and splendid, their backs and shoulders seemed prolonged in -hugeness as though they often crouched to spring; they seemed to paw -the air; and that a faint delicious sound to which they kept obedient -time and rhythm, held that same sweetness which had issued from the -hills of Greece, blown down now among the trees from very far away. -And when he says "blown down among the trees," he qualifies this -phrase as well, because at the same time it came to him that the sound -also rose up from underneath the earth, as if the very surface of the -ground ran shaking with a soft vibration of its own. Some marvelous -dream it might have been in which the forms, the movement, and the -sound were all thrown up and outwards from the quivering surface of -the Earth itself. - -Yet, almost simultaneously with the first instant of waking, the body -issued its call of warning. For, while he gazed, and before time for the -least reflection came, the Irishman experienced this dislocating -conviction that he himself was taking part in the whirling gambol even -while he lay and watched it, and that in this way the sense of division -in his personality was explained. The fragment of himself within the -brain watched some other more vital fragment--some projection of his -consciousness detached and separate--playing yonder with its kind -beneath the moon. - -This sense of a divided self was not new to him, but never before had -he known it so distinct and overwhelming. The definiteness of the -division, as well as the importance and vitality of the separated -portion, were arrestingly novel. It felt as though he were completely -out, or to such a degree, at least, that the fraction left behind with -the brain was at first only just sufficient for him to recognize his body -at all. - -Yonder with these others he felt the wind of movement pass along -his back, he saw the trees slip by, and knew the very contact of the -ground between the leaps. His movements were natural and easy, light -as air and fast as wind; they seemed automatic, impelled by something -mighty that directed and contained them. He knew, too, the sensation -that others pressed behind him and passed before, slipped in and out, -and that through the whole wild urgency of it he yet could never make -an error. More--he knew that these shifting forms had been close and -dancing about him for a time not measurable merely by the hours of a -single night, that in a sense they were always there though he had but -just discovered them. His earlier glimpses had been a very partial -divination of a truth, immense and beautiful, that now dawned quite -gorgeously upon him all complete. - -The whole world danced. The Universe was rhythmical as well as metrical. - -For this amazing splendor showed itself in a flash-like revelation to -the freed portion of his consciousness, and he knew it irresistibly -because he himself shared it. Here was an infinite joy, naked and -unashamed, born of the mighty Mother's heart and life, a joy which, in -its feebler, lesser manifestations, trickles down into human conditions, -though still spontaneously even then, so pure its primal urgency, -as--dancing. - -The entire experience, the entire revelation, he thinks, can have -occupied but a fraction of a second, but it seemed to smite the whole -of his being at once with the conviction of a supreme authority. And -close behind it came, too, that other sister expression of a spontaneous -and natural expression, equally rhythmical--the impulse to sing. He -could have sung aloud. For this puissant and mysterious rhythm to which -all moved was greater than any little measure of their own. Surging -through them, it came from outside and beyond, infinitely greater than -themselves, springing from something of which they were, nevertheless, a -living portion. From the body of the Earth it came direct--it was in -fact a manifestation of her own vibrating life. The currents of the -Earth pulsed through them. - -"And then," he says, "I caught this flaming thought of wonder, though so -much of it faded instantly upon my full awakening that I can only give -you the merest suggestion of what it was." - -He stood up beside me as he said it, spreading his arms, as so often -when he was excited, to the sky. I caught the glow of his eyes, and in -his voice was passion. He spoke unquestionably of something he had -intimately known, not as men speak of even the vividest dreams, but of -realities that have burned the heart and left their trails of glory. - -"Science has guessed some inkling of the truth," he cried, "when it -declares that the ultimate molecules of matter are in constant vibratory -movement one about another, even upon the point of a needle. But I -saw--_knew_, rather, as if I had always known it, sweet as summer rain, -and close in me as love--that the whole Earth with all her myriad -expressions of life moved to this primal rhythm as of some divine -dancing." - -"Dancing?" I asked, puzzled. - -"Rhythmical movement call it then," he replied. "To share the life of -the Earth is to dance and sing in a huge abundant joy! And the nearer -to her great heart, the more natural and spontaneous the impulse--the -instinctive dancing of primitive races, of savages and children, still -artless and untamed; the gamboling of animals, of rabbits in the meadows -and of deer unwatched in forest clearings--you know naturalists have -sometimes seen it; of birds in the air--rooks, gulls, and swallows; of -the life within the sea; even of gnats in the haze of summer afternoons. -All life simple enough to touch and share the enormous happiness of -her deep, streaming, personal Being, dances instinctively for very -joy--obedient to a greater measure than they know.... The natural -movement of the great Earth-Soul is rhythmical. The very winds, the -swaying of trees and flowers and grasses, the movement of the sea, of -water running through the fields with silver feet, of the clouds and -edges of the mist, even the trembling of the earthquakes,--all, all -respond in sympathetic motions to this huge vibratory movement of her -great central pulse. Ay, and the mountains too, though so vastly -scaled their measure that perhaps we only know the pauses in between, -and think them motionless.... The mountains rise and fall and change; -our very breathing, first sign of stirring life, even the circulation of -our blood, bring testimony; our speech as well--inspired words are ever -rhythmical, language that pours into the poet's mind from something -greater than himself. And not unwisely, but in obedience to a deep -instinctive knowledge was dancing once--in earlier, simpler days--a -form of worship. You know, at least, how rhythm in music and ceremonial -uplifts and cleans and simplifies the heart toward the greater life.... -You know, perhaps, the Dance of Jesus...." - -The words poured from him with passion, yet always uttered gently -with a smile of joy upon the face. I saw his figure standing over me, -outlined against the starry sky; and, deeply stirred, I listened with -delight and wonder. Rhythm surely lies behind all expression of life. -He was on the heels of some simple, dazzling verity though he phrased it -wildly. But not a tenth part of all he said could I recapture afterwards -for writing down. The steady, gentle swaying of his body I remember -clearly, and that somewhere or other in the stream of language, he made -apt reference to the rhythmical swaying of those who speak in trance, or -know some strange, possessing gust of inspiration. - -The first and natural expression of the Earth's vitality lies in a -dancing movement of purest joy and happiness--that for me is the gist of -what remains. Those near enough to Nature feel it. I myself remembered -days in spring ... my thoughts, borne upon some sweet emotion, traveled -far.... - -"And not of the Earth alone," he interrupted my dreaming in a voice -like singing, "but of the entire Universe. The spheres and -constellations weave across the fields of ether the immense old rhythm of -their divine, eternal dance...!" - -Then, with a disconcerting abruptness, and a strange little wayward -laugh as of apology for having let himself so freely go, he sat down -beside me with his back against the chimney-stack. He resumed more -quietly the account of this particular adventure that lay 'twixt dream -and waking: - -All that he described had happened in a few seconds. It flashed, -complete, authoritative and vivid, then passed away. He knew again the -call and warning of his body--to return. For this consciousness of being -in two places at once, divided as it were against himself, brought with -it the necessity for decision. With which portion should he identify -himself? By an act of will, it seemed, a choice was possible. - -And with it, then, came the knowledge that to remain "out" was easier -than to return. This time, to come back into himself would be difficult. - -The very possibility seemed to provide the shock of energy necessary -for overcoming it; the experience alarmed him; it was like holding an -option upon living--like a foretaste of death. Automatically, as it were, -these loosened forces in him answered to the body's summons. The -result was immediate and singular; one of these Dancing outlines -separated itself from the main herd, approached with a sudden silent -rush, enveloped him for a second of darkness and confusion, losing its -shape completely on the way, and then merged into his being as smoke -slips in and merges with the structure of a tree. - -The projected portion of his personality had returned. The sense of -division was gone. There remained behind only the little terror of the -weak flesh whose summons had thus brought it back. - -The same instant he was fully awake--the night about him empty -of all but the silver dreaming of the moon among the shadows. Beside -him lay the sleeping figure of his companion, the bashlik of lamb's wool -drawn closely down about the ears and neck, and the voluminous black -burka shrouding him from feet to shoulders. A little distance away the -horse stood, munching grass. Again he noted that there was no wind, -and the shadows of the trees lay motionless upon the ground. The air -smelt sweet of forest, soil, and dew. - -The experience--it seemed now--belonged to dreaming rather than -to waking consciousness, for there was nothing about him to confirm -it outwardly. Only the memory remained--that, and a vast, deep-coursing, -subtle happiness. The smaller terror that he felt was of the flesh -alone, for the flesh ever instinctively fought against such separation. -The happiness, though, contained and overwhelmed the fear. - -Yes, only the memory remained, and even that fast fading. But the -substance of what had been, passed into his inmost being: the splendor -of that would remain forever, incorporated with his life. He had shared -in this brief moment of extended consciousness some measure of the -Mother's cosmic being, simple as sunshine, unrestrained as wind, complete -and satisfying. Its natural expression was rhythmical, a deep, pure -joy that drove outwards even into little human conditions as dancing -and singing. He had known it, too, with companions of his kind... - -Moreover, though no longer visible or audible, it still continued -somewhere close. He was blessedly companioned all the time--and -watched. _They_ knew him one of themselves--these brother expressions -of her cosmic life--these _Urwelt_ beings that Today had no external, -bodily forms. They waited, knowing well that he would come. Fulfillment -beckoned surely just beyond... - - - - -XXIX - -"... And then suddenly,-- - While perhaps twice my heart was dutiful - To send my blood upon its little race-- - I was exalted above surety, - And out of Time did fall." - ---LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE, _Poems and Interludes_ - - -This, then, was one of the "hints" by which O'Malley knew that he -was not alone and that the mind of his companion was stretched out -to find him. He became aware after it of a distinct guidance, even of -direction as to his route of travel. The "impulse came," as one says, to -turn northwards, and he obeyed it without more ado. For this "dream" -had come to him when camped upon the slopes of Ararat, further south -toward the Turkish frontier, and though all prepared to climb the -sixteen-thousand foot summit, he changed his plans, dismissed the local -guide, and turned back for Tiflis and the Central Range. In the wilder, -lonelier mountains, he felt strongly, was where he ought to be. - -Another man, of course, would have dismissed the dream or forgotten -it while cooking his morning coffee; but, rightly or wrongly, this -divining Celt accepted it as real. He held an instinctive belief, that in -dreams of a certain order the forces that drive behind the soul at a -given moment, may reveal themselves to the subconscious self, becoming -authoritative in proportion as they are sanely encouraged and -interpreted. They dramatize themselves in scenes that are open to -intuitive interpretation. And O'Malley, it seems, possessed, like the -Hebrew prophets of old, just that measure of judgment and divination -which go to the making of a true clear-vision. - -Packing up kit and dunnage, he crossed the Georgian Military Route -on foot to Vladikavkaz, and thence with another horse and a Mohammedan -Georgian as guide, Rostom by name, journeyed _via_ Alighir and Oni up a -side valley of unforgettable splendor toward an Imerethian hamlet where -they meant to lay-in supplies for a prolonged expedition into the -uninhabited wilderness. - -And here, the second occurrence he told me of took place. It was more -direct than the first, yet equally strange; also it brought a similar -authority--coming first along the deep mysterious underpaths of -sleep--sleep, that short cut into the subconscious. - -They were camped among low boxwood trees, a hot dry night, wind soft and -stars very brilliant, when the Irishman turned in his sleeping-bag -and abruptly woke. This time there was no dream--only the certainty that -something had wakened him deliberately. He sat up, almost with a cry. It -was exactly as though he heard himself called by name and recognized the -voice that spoke it. He looked quickly round. Nothing but the crowding -army of the box-trees was visible, some bushy and round, others -straggling in their outline, all whispering gently together in the night. -Beyond ran the immense slopes, and far overhead he saw the gleaming snow -on peaks that brushed the stars. - -No one was visible. This time no flying figures danced beneath the -moon. There was, indeed, no moon. Something, however, he knew had -come up close and touched him, calling him from the depths of a -profound and tired slumber. It had withdrawn again, vanished into the -night. The strong certainty remained, though, that it lingered near about -him still, trying to press forwards and outwards into some kind of -objective visible expression that _included himself_. He had responded -with an effort in his sleep, but the effort had been unsuccessful. He had -merely waked ... and lost it. - -The horse, tethered a few feet away, was astir and troubled, straining -at the rope, whinnying faintly, and Rostom, the Georgian peasant, he -saw, was already up to quiet it. A curious perfume passed him through -the air--once, then vanished; unforgettable, however, for he had known -it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods -about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers -and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that -had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting--a -fine, clean odor that he liked even while it strangely troubled him. - -Kicking out of his blankets, he joined the man and helped to -straighten out the tangled rope. Rostom spoke little Russian, and -O'Malley's knowledge of Georgian lay in a single phrase, "Look sharp!" -but with the aid of French the man had learned from shooting-parties, -he gathered that some one had approached during the night and -camped, it seemed, not far away above them. - -Though unusual enough in so unfrequented a region, this was not -necessarily alarming, and the first proof O'Malley had that the man -experienced no ordinary physical fear was the fact that he had left both -knife and rifle in his blankets. Hitherto, at the least sign of danger, -he changed into a perfect arsenal; he invariably slept "in his weapons"; -but now, even in the darkness, the other noted that he was unarmed, and -therefore it was no attempt at horse-stealing or of assault upon -themselves he feared. - -"Who is it? What is it?" he asked, stumbling over the tangle of -string-like roots that netted the ground. "Natives, travelers like -ourselves, or--something else?" He spoke very low, as though aware that -what had waked him still hovered close enough to overhear. "Why do you -fear?" - -And Rostom looked up a moment from stooping over the rope. He stepped a -little nearer, avoiding the animal's hoofs. In a confused whisper of -French and Russian, making at the same time the protective signs of his -religion, he muttered a sentence of which the other caught little more -than the unassuring word that something was about them close--something -"_méchant_." This curious, significant word he used. - -The whispered utterance, the manner that went with it, surely the dark -and lonely setting of the little scene as well, served to convey the -full suggestion of the adjective with a force the man himself could -scarcely have intended. Something had passed by, not so much evil, -wicked, or malign as strange and alien--uncanny. Rostom, a man utterly -careless of physical danger, rising to it, rather, with delight, was -frightened--in his soul. - -"What do you mean?" O'Malley asked louder, with an air of impatience -assumed. The man was on his knees, but whether praying, or merely -struggling with the rope, was hard to see. "What is it you're talking -about so foolishly?" He spoke with a confidence he hardly felt himself. - -And the involved reply, spoken with lips against the earth, the head -but slightly turned as he knelt, again smothered the words. Only the -curious phrase came to him--"_de l'ancien monde_--_quelque-chose_--" - -The Irishman took him by the shoulders. Not meaning actually to shake -him, he yet must have used some violence, for the fact was that he did -not like the answers and sought to deny some strong emotion in himself. -The man stood up abruptly with a kind of sudden spring. The expression of -his face was not easily divined in the darkness, but a gleam of the eyes -was clearly visible. It may have been anger, it may have been terror; -vivid excitement it certainly was. - -"Something--old as the stones, old as the stones," he whispered, -thrusting his dark bearded face unpleasantly close. "Such things are in -these mountains.... _Mais oui! C'est moi qui vous le dis!_ Old as the -stones, I tell you. And sometimes they come out close--with sudden wind. -_We_ know!" - -He stepped back again sharply and dropped upon his knees, bowing -to the ground with flattened palms. He made a repelling gesture as -though it was O'Malley's presence that brought the experience. - -"And to see them is--to die!" he heard, muttered against the ground -thickly. "To see them is to die!" - -The Irishman went back to his sleeping-bag. Some strange passion of -the man was deeply stirred; he did not wish to offend his violent beliefs -and turn it against himself in a stupid, scrambling fight. He lay and -waited. He heard the muttering of the deep voice behind him in the -darkness. Presently it ceased. Rostom came softly back to bed. - -"_He_ knows; _he_ warned me!" he whispered, jerking one hand toward the -horse significantly, as they at length lay again side by side in their -blankets and the stars shone down upon them from a deep black sky. -"But, for the moment, they have passed, not finding us. No wind has -come." - -"Another--horse?" asked O'Malley suggestively, with a sympathy -meant to quiet him. - -But the peasant shook his head; and this time it was not difficult to -divine the expression on his face even in the darkness. At the same -moment the tethered animal again uttered a long whinnying cry, plaintive, -yet of pleasure rather than alarm it seemed, which instantly brought -the man again with a leap from the blankets to his knees. O'Malley did -not go to help him; he stuffed the clothes against his ears and waited; -he did not wish to hear the peasant's sentences. - -And this pantomime went on at intervals for an hour or more, when -at length the horse grew quiet and O'Malley snatched moments of -unrefreshing sleep. The night lay thick about them with a silence like -the silence of the sky. The boxwood bushes ran together into a single -sheet of black, the far peaks faded out of sight, the air grew keen and -sharp toward the dawn on the wave of wind the sunrise drives before it -round the world. But to and fro across the Irishman's mind as he lay -between sleep and dozing ran the feeling that his friends were close, and -that those dancing forms of cosmic life to which all three approximated -had come near once more to summon him. He also knew that what the -horse had felt was something far from terror. The animal instinctively -had divined the presence of something to which it, too, was remotely -kin. - -Rostom, however, remained keenly on the alert, much of the time -apparently praying. Not once did he touch the weapons that lay ready -to hand upon the folded burka ... and when at last the dawn came, pale -and yellow, through the trees, showing the outlines of the individual box -and azalea bushes, he got up earlier than usual and began to make the -fire for coffee. In the fuller light which soon poured swiftly over the -eastern summits and dropped gold and silver into the tremendous valley at -their feet, the men made a systematic search of the immediate -surroundings, and then of the clearings and more open stretches beyond. -In silence they made it. They found, however, no traces of another -camping-party. And it was clear from the way they went about the search -that neither expected to find anything. The ground was unbroken, the -bushes undisturbed. - -Yet still, both knew. That "something" which the night had brought -and kept concealed, still hovered close about them. - -And it was at this scattered hamlet, consisting of little more than -a farm of sorts and a few shepherds' huts of stone, where they stopped -two hours later for provisions, that O'Malley looked up thus suddenly -and recognized the figure of his friend. He stood among the trees a -hundred yards away. At first the other thought he was a tree--his -stalwart form the stem, his hair and beard the branches--so big and -motionless he stood between the other trunks. O'Malley saw him for a full -minute before he understood. The man seemed so absolutely a part of the -landscape, a giant detail in keeping with the rest--a detail that had -suddenly emerged. - -The same moment a great draught of wind, rising from depths of the -valley below, swept overhead with a roaring sound, shaking the beech -and box trees and setting all the golden azalea heads in a sudden -agitation. It passed as swiftly as it came. The peace of the June morning -again descended on the mountains. - -It was broken by a wild, half-smothered cry,--a cry of genuine terror. - -For O'Malley had turned to Rostom with some word that here, in this -figure, lay the explanation of the animal's excitement in the night, -when he saw that the peasant, white as chalk beneath the tangle of black -hair that covered his face, had stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth -was open, his arms upraised to shield; he was staring fixedly in the same -direction as himself. The next instant he was on his knees, bowing and -scraping toward Mecca, groaning, hiding his eyes with both hands. The -sack he held had toppled over; the cheese and flour rolled upon the -ground; and from the horse came that long-drawn whinnying of the -night. - -There was a momentary impression--entirely in the Irishman's mind, of -course,--that the whole landscape veiled a giant, rushing movement that -passed across it like a wave. The surface of the earth, it seemed, ran -softly quivering, as though that wind had stirred response together with -the trembling of the million leaves ... before it settled back again to -stillness. It passed in the flash of an eyelid. The earth lay tranquil in -repose. - -But, though the suddenness of the stranger's arrival might conceivably -have startled the ignorant peasant, with nerves already overwrought -from the occurrence of the night, O'Malley was not prepared for the -violence of the man's terror as shown by the immediate sequel. For after -several moments' prayer and prostration, with groans half smothered -against the very ground, he sprang impetuously to his feet again, turned -to his employer with eyes that gleamed wildly in that face of chalk, -cried out--the voice thick with the confusion of his fear--"It is the -Wind! _They_ come; from the mountains _they_ come! Older than the stones -they are. Save yourself.... Hide your eyes ... fly...!"--and was gone. -Like a deer he went. He waited neither for food nor payment, but flung -the great black burka round his face--and ran. - -And to O'Malley, bereft of all power of movement as he watched in -complete bewilderment, one thing seemed clear: the man went in this -extraordinary fashion because he was afraid of something he had _felt_, -not seen. For as he ran with wild and leaping strides, he did not run -away from the figure. He took the direction straight toward the spot -where the stranger still stood motionless as a tree. So close he passed -him that he must almost have brushed his very shoulder. He did not -see him. - -The last thing the Irishman noted was that in his violence the man -had dropped the yellow bashlik from his head. O'Malley saw him stoop -with a flying rush to pick it up. He seemed to catch it as it fell. - -And then the big figure moved. He came slowly forward from among -the trees, his hands outstretched in greeting, on his great visage a -shining smile of welcome that seemed to share the sunrise. In that moment -for the Irishman all was forgotten as though unknown, unseen, save the -feelings of extraordinary happiness that filled him to the brim. - - - - -XXX - -"The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for -the title of their order, 'Those who are free throughout the world.' They -are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us much more -service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, -when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of -any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a -man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he -forgets the authors and the public, and heeds only this one dream, which -holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, and you may have all -the arguments and histories and criticism." - ---EMERSON - - -To criticize, deny, perhaps to sneer, is no very difficult or uncommon -function of the mind, and the story as I first heard him tell it, -lying there in the grass beyond the Serpentine that summer evening, -roused in me, I must confess, all of these very ordinary faculties. Yet, -as I listened to his voice that mingled with the rustle of the poplars -overhead, and watched his eager face and gestures, it came to me dimly -that a man's mistakes may be due to his attempting bigger things than -his little critic ever dreamed perhaps. And gradually I shared the vision -that this unrhyming poet by my side had somehow lived out in action. - -Inner experience for him was ever the reality--not the mere forms -or deeds that clothe it in partial physical expression. - -There was no question, of course, that he had actually met this big, -inarticulate Russian on the steamer; that Stahl's part in the account was -unvarnished; that the boy had fallen on the deck from heart disease; and -that, after an interval, chance had brought O'Malley and the father -together again in this valley of the Central Caucasus. All that was as -literal as the superstitious terror of the Georgian peasant. Further, -that the Russian possessed precisely those qualities of powerful sympathy -with the other's hidden longings which the subtle-minded Celt had been -so quick to appropriate--this, too, was literal enough. Here, doubtless, -was the springboard whence he leaped into the stream of this -quasi-spiritual adventure with an eagerness of fine, whole-hearted belief -which must make this dull world a very wonderful place indeed to those -who know it; for it is the visioned faculty of correlating the commonest -event with the procession of august Powers that pass ever to and fro -behind life's swaying curtain, and of divining in the most ordinary of -yellow buttercups the golden fires of a dropped star. - -Again, for Terence O'Malley there seemed no definite line that marked off -one state of consciousness from another, just as there seems no given -instant when a man passes actually from sleep to waking, from pleasure to -pain, from joy to grief. There is, indeed, no fixed threshold between the -states of normal and abnormal consciousness. In this stranger he imagined -a sense of companionship that by some magic of alchemy transformed his -deep loneliness into joy, and satisfied his passionate yearnings by -bringing their subjective fulfillment within range. To have found -acceptance in his sight was thus a revolutionary fact in his existence. -While a part of my mind may have labeled it all as creative imagination, -another part recognized it as plainly true--because his being lived it -out without the least denial. - -He, at any rate, was not inventing; nor ever knew an instant's doubt. -He simply told me what had happened. The discrepancies--the omissions -in his written account especially--were simply due, I feel, to the -fact that his skill in words was not equal to the depth and brilliance of -the emotions that he experienced. But the fact remains: he did experience -them. His fairy tale convinced. - -His faith had made him whole--one with the Earth. The sense of -disunion between his outer and his inner self was gone. - -And now, as these two began their journey together into the wilder -region of these stupendous mountains, O'Malley says he realized clearly -that the change he had dreaded as an "inner catastrophe" simply would -mean the complete and final transfer of his consciousness from the -"without" to the "within." It would involve the loss only of what -constituted him a person among the external activities of the world -today. He would lose his life to find it. The deeper self thus quickened -by the stranger must finally assert its authority over the rest. To join -these Urwelt beings and share their eternal life of beauty close to the -Earth herself, he must shift the center. Only thus could he enter the -state before the "Fall"--that ancient Garden of the World-Soul, walled-in -so close behind his daily life--and know deliverance from the discontent -of modern conditions that so distressed him. - -To do this temporarily, perhaps, had long been possible to him--in -dream, in reverie, in those imaginative trances when he almost seemed -to leave his body altogether; but to achieve it permanently was something -more than any such passing disablement of the normal self. It involved, -he now saw clearly, that which he had already witnessed in the boy: the -final release of his Double in so-called death. - -Thus, as they made their way northwards, nominally toward the mighty -Elbruz and the borders of Swanetia, the Irishman knew in his heart that -they in reality came nearer to the Garden long desired, and to those -lofty Gates of horn and ivory that hitherto he had never found--because -he feared to let himself go. Often he had camped beneath the walls, had -smelt the flowers, heard the songs, and even caught glimpses of the life -that moved so gorgeously within. But the Gates themselves had never shone -for him, even against the sky of dream, because his vision had been -clouded by alarm. They swung, it had seemed to him before, in only one -direction--for those who enter: he had always hesitated, lost his way, -returned.... And many, like him, make the same mistake. Once in, there -need be no return, for in reality the walls spread outwards and--enclose -the entire world. - -Civilization and Humanity, the man of smaller vision had called out -to him as passwords to safety. Simplicity and Love, he now discovered, -were the truer clues. His big friend in silence taught him. Now he knew. - -For in that little hamlet their meeting had taken place--in silence. -No actual speech had passed. "You go--so?" the Russian conveyed by -a look and by a movement of his whole figure, indicating the direction; -and to the Irishman's assenting inclination of the head he made an -answering gesture that merely signified compliance with a plan already -known to both. "We go, together then." And, there and then, they -started, side by side. - -The suddenness of this concerted departure only seemed strange afterwards -when O'Malley looked back upon it, for at the time it seemed as -inevitable as being obliged to swim once the dive is taken. He stood -upon a pinnacle whence lesser details were invisible; he knew a kind of -exaltation--of loftier vision. Small facts that ordinarily might fill the -day with trouble sank below the horizon then. He did not even notice -that they went without food, horse, or blankets. It was reckless, -unrestrained, and utterly unhindered, this free setting-forth together. -Thus might he have gone upon a journey with the wind, the sunshine, or -the rain. Departure with a thought, a dream, a fancy could not have been -less unhampered. - -The only detail of his outer world that lingered--and that, already -sinking out of sight like a stone into deep water--was the image of the -running peasant. For a moment he recalled the picture. He saw the man -in the act of stooping after the fallen bashlik. He saw him seize it, -lift it to his head again. But the picture was small--already very far -away. Before the bashlik actually reached the head, the detail dipped -into mist and vanished.... - - - - -XXXI - - -It was spring--and the flutes of Pan played everywhere. The radiance -of the world's first morning shone undimmed. Life flowed and sang and -danced, abundant and untamed. It bathed the mountains and that sky of -stainless blue. It bathed him too. Dipped, washed, and shining in it, he -walked the Earth as she lay radiant in her early youth. The crystal -presence of her everlasting Spring flew laughing through a world of light -and flowers--flowers that none could ever pluck to die, light that could -never fade to darkness within walls and roofs. - -All day they wound easily, as though on winged feet, through the steep -belt of box and beech woods, and in sparkling brilliant heat across -open spaces where the azaleas shone; a cooling wind, fresh as the dawn, -seemed ever to urge them forwards. The country, for all its huge scale -and wildness, was park-like; the giant, bushy trees wore an air of being -tended by the big winds that ran with rustling music among their waving -foliage. Between the rhododendrons were avenues of turf, broad-gladed -pathways, yet older than the moon, from which a thousand gardeners -of wind and dew had gone but a moment before to care for others -further on. Over all brimmed up some primal, old-world beauty of a -simple life--some immemorial soft glory of the dawn. - -Closer and closer, deeper and deeper, ever swifter, ever more direct, -O'Malley passed down toward the heart of his mother's being. Along -the tenderest pathways of his inner being, so wee, so soft, so simple -that for most men they lie ignored or overgrown, he slipped with joy a -little nearer--one stage perhaps--toward Reality. - -Pan "blew in power" across these Caucasian heights and valleys. - -Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! - Piercing sweet by the river! -Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! -The sun on the hill forgot to die, -And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly - Came back to dream on the river - -In front his big leader, no longer blundering clumsily as on that toy -steamer with the awkward and lesser motion known to men, pressed -forward with a kind of giant sure supremacy along paths he knew, or -rather over a trackless, pathless world which the great planet had -charted lovingly for his splendid feet. That wind, blowing from the -depths of valleys left long since behind, accompanied them wisely. They -heard, not the faint horns of Elfland faintly blowing, but the blasts of -the _Urwelt_ trumpets growing out of the still distance, nearer, ever -nearer. For leagues below the beech woods poured over the enormous slopes -in a sea of soft green foam, and through the meadow spaces they saw the -sweet nakedness of running water, and listened to its song. At noon they -rested in the greater heat, sleeping beneath the shadow of big rocks; and -sometimes traveled late into the night, when the stars guided them and -they knew the pointing of the winds. The very moonlight then, that -washed this lonely world with silver, sheeting the heights of snow -beyond, was friendly, half divine ... and it seemed to O'Malley that -while they slept they were watched and cared for--as though Others -who awaited had already come halfway out to meet them. - -And ever, more and more, the passion of his happiness increased; he -knew himself complete, fulfilled, made whole. It was as though his Self -were passing outwards into hundreds of thousands, and becoming -countless as the sand. He was everywhere; in everything; shining, -singing, dancing.... With the ancient woods he breathed; slipped with the -streams down the still darkened valleys; called from each towering -summit to the Sun; and flew with all the winds across the immense, -untrodden slopes. About him lay this whole spread being of the flowered -Caucasus, huge and quiet, drinking in the sunshine at its leisure. But it -lay also _within_ himself, for his expanding consciousness included and -contained it. Through it--this early potent Mood of Nature--he passed -toward the Soul of the Earth within, even as a child, caught by a mood of -winning tenderness in its mother, passes closer to the heart that gave it -birth. Some central love enwrapped him. He knew the surrounding power of -everlasting arms. - - - - -XXXII - -"Inward, ay, deeper far than love or scorn, - Deeper than bloom of virtue, stain of sin, - Rend thou the veil and pass alone within, - Stand naked there and know thyself forlorn. - Nay! in what world, then, spirit, vast thou born? - Or to what World-Soul art thou entered in? - Feel the Self fade, feel the great life begin. - With Love re-rising in the cosmic morn. - The Inward ardor yearns to the inmost goal; - The endless goal is one with the endless way; - From every gulf the tides of Being roll, - From every zenith burns the indwelling day, - And life in Life has drowned thee and soul in Soul; - And these are God and thou thyself art they." - ---F.W.H. MYERS. From "A Cosmic Outlook" - - -The account of what followed simply swept me into fairyland, yet a -Fairyland that is true because it lives in every imaginative heart that -does not dream itself shut off from the Universe in some wee compartment -all alone. - -If O'Malley's written account, and especially his tumbled notebooks, -left me bewildered and confused, the fragments that he told me brought -this sense of an immense, sweet picture that actually existed. I caught -small scenes of it, set in some wild high light. Their very incoherence -conveyed the gorgeous splendor of the whole better than any neat ordered -sequence could possibly have done. - -Climax, in the story-book meaning, there was none. The thing flowed -round and round forever. A sense of something eternal wrapped me as -I listened; for his imagination set the whole adventure out of time and -space, and I caught myself dreaming too. "A thousand years in His -sight"--I understood the old words as refreshingly new--might be a day. -Thus felt that monk, perhaps, for whose heart a hundred years had passed -while he listened to the singing of a little bird. - -My practical questions--it was only at the beginning that I was dull -enough to ask them--he did not satisfy, because he could not. There -was never the least suggestion of the artist's mere invention. - -"You really felt the Earth about and in you," I had asked, "much as -one feels the presence of a friend and living person?" - -"Drowned in her, yes, as in the thoughts and atmosphere of some one -awfully loved." His voice a little trembled as he said it. - -"So speech unnecessary?" - -"Impossible--fatal," was the laconic, comprehensive reply, "limiting: -destructive even." - -That, at least, I grasped: the pitifulness of words before that love by -which self goes wholly lost in the being of another, adrift yet cared -for, gathered all wonderfully in. - -"And your Russian friend--your leader?" I ventured, haltingly. - -His reply was curiously illuminating:-- - -"Like some great guiding Thought within her mind--some flaming -_motif_--interpreting her love and splendor--leading me straight." - -"As you felt at Marseilles, a clue--a vital clue?" For I remembered -the singular phrase he had used in the notebook. - -"Not a bad word," he laughed; "certainly, as far as it goes, not a wrong -one. For he--_it_--was at the same time within myself. We merged, as -our life grew and spread. We swept things along with us from the banks. -We were in flood together," he cried. "We drew the landscape with us!" - -The last words baffled me; I found no immediate response. He pushed -away the plates on the table before us, where we had been lunching in -the back room of a dingy Soho restaurant. We now had the place to -ourselves. He drew his chair a little nearer. - -"Don't ye see--our journey also was _within_," he added abruptly. - -The pale London sunlight came through the window across chimneys, -dreary roofs, courtyards. Yet where it touched his face it seemed at -once to shine. His voice was warm and eager. I caught from him, as it -were, both heat and light. - -"You moved actually, though, over country--?" - -"While at the same time we moved within, advanced, sank deeper," -he returned; "call it what you will. Our condition moved. There was this -correspondence between the two. Over her face we walked, yet into her -as well. We 'traveled' with One greater than ourselves, both caught and -merged in her, in utter sympathy with one another as with herself..." - -This stopped me dead. I could not pretend more than a vague sympathetic -understanding with such descriptions of a mystical experience. Nor, it -was clear, did he expect it of me. Even his own heart was troubled, and -he knew he spoke of things that only few may deal with sanely, still -fewer hear with patience. - -But, oh, that little room in Greek Street smelt of forests, dew, and -dawn as he told it,--that dear wayward Child of Earth! For "his voice -fell, like music that makes giddy the dim brain, faint with intoxication -of keen joy." I watched those delicate hands he spread about him -through the air; the tender, sensitive lips, the light blue eyes that -glowed. I noted the real strength in the face,--a sort of nobility it -was--his shabby suit of grey, his tie never caught properly in the -collar, the frayed cuffs, and the enormous boots he wore even in -London--"policeman boots" as we used to call them with a laugh. - -So vivid was the picture that he painted! Almost, it seemed, I knew -myself the pulse of that eternal Spring beneath our feet, beating in vain -against the suffocating weight of London's bricks and pavements laid -by civilization--the Earth's delight striving to push outwards into -visible form as flowers. She flashed some scrap of meaning thus into -me, though blunted on the way, I fear, and crudely paraphrased. - -Yes, as he talked across the airless gloom of that little back room, in -some small way I caught the splendor of his vision. Behind the words, -I caught it here and there. My own wee world extended. My being stretched -to understand him and to net in fugitive fragments the scenes of wonder -that he knew complete. - -Perhaps his larger consciousness fringed my own to "bruise" it, as he -claimed the Earth had done to him, so that I glimpsed in tinier measure -an experience that in himself blazed whole and thundering. It was, I -must admit, exalting and invigorating, if a little breathless; and the -return to streets and omnibuses painful--a descent to ugliness and -disappointment. For things I can hardly understand now, even in my -own descriptions of them, seemed at the time quite clear--or clear-ish -at any rate. Whereas normally I could never have compassed them at all. - -It taught me: that, at least, I know. In some spiritual way I quickened -to the view that all great teaching really comes in some such curious -fashion--via a temporary stretching or extension of the "heart" to -receive it. The little normal self is pushed aside to make room, even to -the point of loss, in order to contain it. Later, the consciousness -contracts again. But it has expanded--and there has been growth. Was -this, I wondered, perhaps what mystics speak of when they say the -personal life must slip aside, be trampled on, submerged, before there -can be room for the divine Presences...? - -At any rate, as he talked there over coffee that grew cold and cigarette -smoke that made the air yet thicker than it naturally was, his words -conveyed with almost grandeur of conviction this reality of a profound -inner experience. I shared in some faint way its truth and beauty, so -that when I saw it in his written form I marveled to find the thing so -thin and cold and dwindled. The key his personal presence supplied, of -guidance and interpretation, of course was gone. - - - - -XXXIII - -"Why, what is this patient entrance into Nature's deep resources - But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane? - When we drive out, from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses, - Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane?" - ---E.B. BROWNING - - -The "Russian" led. - -O'Malley styled him thus to the end for want of a larger word, perhaps--a -word to phrase the inner and the outer. Although the mountains were -devoid of trails, he seemed always certain of his way. An absolute -sense of orientation possessed him; or, rather, the whole earth became -a single pathway. Her being, in and about their hearts, concealed no -secrets; he knew the fresh, cool water-springs as surely as the corners -where the wild honey gathered. It seemed as natural that the bees should -leave them unmolested, giving them freely of their store, as that the -savage dogs in the aouls, or villages, they passed so rarely now, should -refrain from attack. Even the peasants shared with them some common, -splendid life. Occasionally they passed an Ossetian on horseback, a rifle -swung across his saddle, a covering burka draping his shoulders and the -animal's haunches in a single form that seemed a very outgrowth of the -mountains. But not even a greeting was exchanged. They passed in silence; -often very close, as though they did not see these two on foot. And once -or twice the horses reared and whinnied, while their riders made the -signs of their religion.... Sentries they seemed. But for the password -known to both they would have stopped the travelers. In these forsaken -fastnesses mere unprotected wandering means death. Yet to the happy -Irishman there never came a thought of danger or alarm. All was a portion -of himself, and no man can be afraid of his own hands or feet. Their -convoy was immense, invisible, a guaranteed security of the vast Earth -herself. No little personal injury could pass so huge defense. Others, -armed with a lesser security of knives and guns and guides, would -assuredly have been turned back, or had they shown resistance, would -never have been heard to tell the tale. Dr. Stahl and the fur-merchant, -for instance-- - -But such bothering little thoughts with their hard edges no longer -touched reality; they spun away and found no lodgment; they were--untrue; -false items of some lesser world unrealized. - -For, in proportion as he fixed his thoughts successfully on outward and -physical things, the world wherein he now walked grew dim: he missed the -path, stumbled, saw trees and flowers indistinctly, failed to hear -properly the call of birds and wind, to feel the touch of sun; and, -most unwelcome of all,--was aware that his leader left him, dwindling -in size, dropping away somehow among shadows far behind or far ahead. - -The inversion was strangely complete: what men called solid, real, and -permanent he now knew as the veriest shadows of existence, fleeting, -unsatisfactory, false. - -Their dreary make-believe had all his life oppressed him. He now knew -why. Men, driving their forces outwards for external possessions had lost -the way so utterly. It truly was amazing. He no longer quite understood -how such feverish strife was possible to intelligent beings: the -fur-merchant, the tourists, his London friends, the great majority of -men and women he had known, pain in their hearts and weariness in -their eyes, the sad strained faces, the furious rush to catch a little -pleasure they deemed joy. It seemed like some wild senseless game that -madness plays. He found it difficult to endow them, one and all, with any -sense of life. He saw them groping in thick darkness, snatching with -hands of shadow at things of even thinner shadow, all moving in a wild -and frantic circle of artificial desires, while just beyond, absurdly -close to many, blazed this great living sunshine of Reality and Peace and -Beauty. If only they would turn--and look _within_--! - -In fleeting moments these sordid glimpses of that dark and shadow-world -still afflicted his outer sight--the nightmare he had left behind. It -played like some gloomy memory through a corner of consciousness not yet -wholly disentangled from it. Already he burned to share his story with -the world...! A few he saw who here and there half turned, touched by a -flashing ray--then rushed away into the old blackness as though -frightened, not daring to escape. False images thrown outward by the -intellect prevented. Stahl he saw ... groping; a soft light of yearning -in his eyes ... a hand outstretched to push the shadows from him, yet -ever gathering them instead.... Men he saw by the million, youth still in -their hearts, yet slaving in darkened trap-like cages not merely to earn -a competency but to pile more gold for things not really wanted; faces -of greed round gambling-tables; the pandemonium of Exchanges; even fair -women, playing Bridge through all a summer afternoon--the strife and lust -and passion for possessions degrading every heart, choking the channels -of simplicity.... Over the cities of the world he heard the demon -Civilization sing its song of terror and desolation. Its music of -destruction shook the nations. He saw the millions dance. And mid the -bewildering ugly thunder of that sound few could catch the small sweet -voice played by the Earth upon the little Pipes of Pan... the fluting -call of Nature to the Simple Life--which is the Inner. - -For now, as he moved closer to the Earth, deeper ever deeper into the -enfolding moods of her vast collective consciousness, he drew nearer -to the Reality that satisfies. He approached that center where outward -activity is less, yet energy and vitality far greater--because it is at -rest. Here he met things halfway, as it were, _en route_ for the outer -physical world where they would appear later as "events," but not yet -emerged, still alive and breaking with their undischarged and natural -potencies. Modern life, he discerned, dealt only with these forces when -they had emerged, masquerading at the outer rim of life as complete -embodiments, whereas actually they are but partial and symbolical -expressions of their eternal prototypes behind. And men today were busy -at this periphery only, touch with the center lost, madly consumed with -the unimportant details that concealed the inner glory. It was the spirit -of the age to mistake the outer shell for the inner reality. He at last -understood the reason of his starved loneliness amid the stupid uproar -of latter-day life, why he distrusted "Civilization," and stood apart. -His yearnings were explained. His heart dwelt ever in the Golden Age of -the Earth's first youth, and at last--he was coming home. - -Like mud settling in dirty water, the casual realities of that outer life -all sank away. He grew clear within, one with the primitive splendor, -beauty, grace of a fresh world. Over his inner self, flooding slowly the -passages and cellars, those subterranean ways that honeycomb the dim-lit -foundations of personality, this tide of power rose. Filling chamber -after chamber, melting down walls and ceiling, eating away divisions -softly and irresistibly, it climbed in silence, merging all moods and -disunion of his separate Selves into the single thing that made him -comprehensible to himself and able to know the Earth as Mother. He -saw himself whole; he knew himself divine. A strange tumult as of some -ecstasy of old remembrance invaded him. He dropped back into a more -spacious scale of time, long long ago when a month might be a moment, -or a thousand years pass round him as a single day.... - -The qualities of all the Earth lay too, so easily contained, within -himself. He understood that old legend by which man the microcosm -represents and sums up Earth, the macrocosm in himself, so that Nature -becomes the symbol and interpreter of his inner being. The strength -and dignity of the trees he drew into himself; the power of the wind was -his; with his unwearied feet ran all the sweet and facile swiftness of -the rivulets, and in his thoughts the graciousness of flowers, the wavy -softness of the grass, the peace of open spaces and the calm of that vast -sky. The murmur of the _Urwelt_ was in his blood, and in his heart the -exaltation of her golden Mood of Spring. - -How, then, could speech be possible, since both shared this common life? -The communion with his friend and leader was too profound and perfect -for any stammering utterance in the broken, partial symbols known as -language. This was done for them: the singing of the birds, the -wind-voices, the rippling of water, the very humming of the myriad -insects even, and rustling of the grass and leaves, shaped all they felt -in some articulate expression that was right, complete, and adequate. The -passion of the larks set all the sky to music, and songs far sweeter than -the nightingales' made every dusk divine. - -He understood now that laborious utterance of his friend upon the -steamer, and why his difficulty with words was more than he could -overcome. - -Like a current in the sea he still preserved identity, yet knew the -freedom of a boundless being. And meanwhile the tide was ever rising. -With this singular companion he neared that inner realization which -should reveal them as they were--Thoughts in the Earth's old -Consciousness too primitive, too far away, too vital and terrific to be -confined in any outward physical expression of the "civilized" world -today.... The earth shone, glittered, sang, holding them close to the -rhythm of her gigantic heart. Her glory was their own. In the blazing -summer of the inner life they floated, happy, caught away, at peace ... -emanations of her living Self. - - * * * * * - -The valleys far below were filled with mist, cutting them off literally -from the world of men, but the beauty of the upper mountains grew more -and more bewilderingly enticing. The scale was so immense, while the -brilliant clearness of the air brought distance close before the eyes, -altered perspective, and robbed "remote" and "near" of any definite -meaning. Space fled away. It shifted here and there at pleasure, -according as they felt. It was within them, not without. They passed, -dispersed and swift about the entire landscape, a very part of it, -diffused in terms of light and air and color, scattered in radiance, -distributed through flowers, spread through the sky and grass and -forests. Space is a form of thought. But they no longer "thought": they -felt.... O, that prodigious, clean, and simple Feeling of the Earth! Love -that redeems and satisfies! Power that fills and blesses! Electric -strength that kills the germ of separateness, making whole! The medicine -of the world! - -For days and nights it was thus--or was it years and minutes?--while -they skirted the slopes and towers of the huge Dykh-Taou, and Elbrous, -supreme and lonely in the heavens, beckoned solemnly. The snowy -Kochtan-Taou rolled past, yet through, them; Kasbek superbly thundered; -hosts of lesser summits sang in the dawn and whispered to the -stars. And longing sank away--impossible. - -"My boy, my boy, could you only have been with me...!" broke his -voice across the splendid dream, bringing me back to the choking, dingy -room I had forgotten. It was like a cry--a cry of passionate yearning. - -"I'm with you now," I murmured, some similar rising joy half breaking in -my breast. "That's something--" - -He sighed in answer. "Something, perhaps. But I have got it always; it's -all still part of me. Oh, oh! that I could give it to the world and lift -the ache of all humanity...!" His voice trembled. I saw the moisture of -immense compassion in his eyes. I felt myself swim out into universal -being. - -"Perhaps," I stammered half beneath my breath, "perhaps some day you -may...!" - -He shook his head. His face turned very sad. - -"How should they listen, much less understand? Their energies drive -outwards, and separation is their God. There is no 'money in it'...!" - - - - -XXXIV - -"Oh! whose heart is not stirred with tumultuous joy when the intimate -Life of Nature enters into his soul with all its plenitude, ... when that -mighty sentiment for which language has no other name than Love is -diffused in him, like some powerful all-dissolving vapor; when he, -shivering with sweet terror, sinks into the dusky, enticing bosom of -Nature; when the meager personality loses itself in the overpowering -waves of passion, and nothing remains but the focal point of the -incommensurable generative Force, an engulfing vortex in the ocean?" - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Saïs._ Translated by U.C.B. - - -Early in the afternoon they left the bigger trees behind, and passed -into that more open country where the shoulders of the mountains were -strewn with rhododendrons. These formed no continuous forest, but -stood about in groups some twenty-five feet high, their rounded masses -lighted on the surface with fires of mauve and pink and purple. When -the wind stirred them, and the rattling of their stiff leaves was heard, -it seemed as if the skin of the mountains trembled to shake out colored -flames. The air turned radiant through a mist of running tints. - -Still climbing, they passed along broad glades of turfy grass between -the groups. More rapidly now, O'Malley says, went forward that inner -change of being which accompanied the progress of their outer selves. -So intimate henceforth was this subtle correspondence that the very -landscape took the semblance of their feelings. They moved as -"emanations" of the landscape. Each melted in the other, dividing lines -all vanished. - -Their union with the Earth approached this strange and sweet fulfillment. - -And so it was that, though at this height the vestiges of bird and -animal life were wholly gone, there grew more and more strongly the -sense that, in their further depths and shadows, these ancient bushes -screened Activities even more ancient than themselves. Life, only -concealed because they had not reached its plane of being, pulsed -everywhere about their pathway, immense in power, moving swiftly, very -grand and very simple, and sometimes surging close, seeking to draw them -in. More than once, as they moved through glade and clearing, the -Irishman knew thrills of an intoxicating happiness, as this abundant, -driving life brushed past him. It came so close, it glided before his -eyes, yet still was viewless. It strode behind him and before, peered -down through space upon him, lapped him about with the stir of mighty -currents. The deep suction of its invitation caught his soul, urging the -change within himself more quickly forward. Huge and delightful, he -describes it, awful, yet bringing no alarm. - -He was always on the point of seeing. Surely the next turning would -reveal; beyond the next dense, tangled group would come--disclosure; -behind that clustered mass of purple blossoms, shaking there mysteriously -in the wind, some half-veiled countenance of splendor watched -and welcomed! Before his face passed swift, deific figures, tall, erect, -compelling, charged with this ancient, golden life that could never -wholly pass away. And only just beyond the fringe of vision. Vision -already strained upon the edge. His consciousness stretched more and -more to reach them, while They came crowding near to let him know -inclusion. - -These projections of the Earth's old consciousness moved thick and -soft about them, eternal in their giant beauty. Soon he would know, -perhaps, the very forms in which she had projected them--dear portions -of her streaming life the earliest races half divined and worshipped, and -never quite withdrawn. Worship could still entice them out. A single -worshipper sufficed. For worship meant retreat into the heart where still -they dwelt. And he had loved and worshipped all his life. - -And always with him, now at his side or now a little in advance, his -leader moved in power, with vigorous, springing gestures like to dancing, -singing that old tuneless song of the wind, happier even than himself. - -The splendor of the _Urwelt_ closed about them. They drew nearer to -the Gates of that old Garden, the first Time ever knew, whose frontiers -were not less than the horizons of the entire world. For this lost Eden -of a Golden Age when "first God dawned on chaos" still shone within -the soul as in those days of innocence before the "Fall," when men first -separated themselves from their great Mother. - -A little before sunset they halted. A hundred yards above the -rhododendron forest, in a clear wide space of turf that ran for leagues -among grey boulders to the lips of the eternal snowfields, they waited. -Through a gap of sky, with others but slightly lower than himself, the -pyramid of Kasbek, grim and towering, stared down upon them, dreadfully -close though really miles away. At their feet yawned the profound -valley they had climbed. Halfway into it, unable to reach the depths, -the sun's last rays dropped shafts like rivers slanting. Already in soft -troops the shadows crept downwards from the eastern-facing summits -overhead. - -Out of these very shadows Night drew swiftly down about the world, -building with her masses of silvery architecture a barrier that rose to -heaven. These two lay down beside it. Beyond it spread that shining -Garden...only the shadow-barrier between. - -With the rising of the moon this barrier softened marvelously, letting -the starbeams in. It trembled like a line of wavering music in the wind -of night. It settled downwards, shaking a little, toward the ground, -while just above them came a curving inwards like a bay of darkness, with -overhead two stately towers, their outline fringed with stars. - -"The Gateway...!" whispered something through the mountains. - -It may have been the leader's voice; it may have been the Irishman's own -leaping thought; it may have been merely a murmur from the rhododendron -leaves below. It came sifting gently through the shadows. O'Malley knew. -He followed his leader higher. Just beneath this semblance of an -old-world portal which Time could neither fashion nor destroy, they lay -upon the earth--and waited. Beside them shone the world, dressed by the -moon in silver. The wind stood still to watch. The peak of Kasbek from -his cloudy distance listened too. - -For, floating upwards across the spaces came a sound of simple, -old-time piping--the fluting music of a little reed. It drew near, -stopped for a moment as though the player watched them; then, with a -plunging swiftness, passed off through starry distance up among the -darker mountains. The lost, forsaken Asian valley covered them. Nowhere -were they extraneous to it. They slept. And while they slept, they moved -across the frontiers of fulfillment. - -The moon-blanched Gate of horn and ivory swung open. The consciousness -of the Earth possessed them. They passed within. - - - - -XXXV - -"For of old the Sun, our sire, - Came wooing the mother of men, - Earth, that was virginal then, -Vestal fire to his fire. -Silent her bosom and coy, - But the strong god sued and press'd; -And born of their starry nuptial joy - Are all that drink of her breast. - -"And the triumph of him that begot, - And the travail of her that bore, - Behold they are evermore -As warp and weft in our lot. -We are children of splendor and flame, - Of shuddering, also, and tears. -Magnificent out of the dust we came, - And abject from the spheres. - -"O bright irresistible lord! - We are fruit of Earth's womb, each one, - And fruit of thy loins, O Sun, -Whence first was the seed outpour'd. -To thee as our Father we bow, - Forbidden thy Father to see, -Who is older and greater than thou, as thou - Art greater and older than we." - ---WILLIAM WATSON, "Ode in May" - - -Very slowly the dawn came. The sky blushed rose, trembled, flamed. A -breath of wind stirred the vapors that far below sheeted the surface -of the Black Sea. But it was still in that gentle twilight before -the actual color comes that O'Malley found he was lying with his eyes -wide open, watching the rhododendrons. He may have slept meanwhile, -though "sleep," he says, involving loss of consciousness, seemed no -right description. A sense of interval there was at any rate, a -"transition-blank,"--whatever that may mean--he phrased it in the -writing. - -And, watching the rhododendron forest a hundred yards below, he saw it -move. Through the dim light this movement passed and ran, here, there, -and everywhere. A curious soft sound accompanied it that made him -remember the Bible phrase of wind "going in the tops of the mulberry -trees." Hushed, swift, elusive murmur, it passed about him through the -dusk. He caught it next behind him and, turning, noticed groups upon the -slopes,--groups that he had not seen the night before. These groups -seemed also now to move; the isolated scattered clusters came together, -merged, ran to the parent forest below, or melted just beyond the line of -vision above. - -The wind sprang up and rattled all the million leaves. That rattling -filled the air, and with it came another, deeper sound like to a sound -of tramping that seemed to shake the earth. Confusion caught him then -completely, for it was as if the mountain-side awoke, rose up, and shook -itself into a wild and multitudinous wave of life. - -At first he thought the wind had somehow torn the rhododendrons loose -from their roots and was strewing them with that tramping sound about the -slopes. But the groups passed too swiftly over the turf for that, swept -completely from their fastenings, while the tramping grew to a roaring as -of cries and voices. That roaring had the quality of the voice that -reached him weeks ago across the Ægean Sea. A strange, keen odor, too, -that was not wholly unfamiliar, moved upon the wind. - -And then he knew that what he had been watching all along were not -rhododendrons at all, but living, splendid creatures. A host of others, -moreover, large ones and small together, stood shadowy in the background, -stamping their feet upon the turf, manes tossing in the early wind, in -their entire mass awful as in their individual outline somehow noble. - -The light spread upwards from the east. With a fire of terrible joy and -wonder in his heart, O'Malley held his breath and stared. The luster of -their glorious bodies, golden bronze in the sunlight, dazed the sight. -He saw the splendor of ten hundred velvet flanks in movement, with here -and there the uprising whiteness of a female outline that flashed and -broke above the general mass like foam upon a great wave's crest--figures -of incomparable grace and power; the sovereign, upright carriage; the -rippling muscles upon massive limbs, and shoulders that held defiant -strength and softness in exquisite combination. And then he heard huge -murmurs of their voices that filled the dawn, aged by lost thousand -years, and sonorous as the booming of the sea. A cry that was like -singing escaped him. He saw them rise and sweep away. There was -a rush of magnificence. They cantered--wonderfully. They were gone. - -The roar of their curious commotion traveled over the mountains, -dying into distance very swiftly. The rhododendron forest that had -concealed their approach resumed its normal aspect, but burning now -with colors innumerable as the sunrise caught its thousand blossoms. -And O'Malley understood that during "sleep" he had passed with his -companion through the gates of ivory and horn, and stood now within -the first Garden of the early world. All frontiers crossed, all -barriers behind, he stood within the paradise of his heart's desire. -The Consciousness of the Earth included him. These were early forms -of life she had projected--some of the living prototypes of legend, -myth, and fable--embodiments of her first manifestations of -consciousness, and eternal, accessible to every heart that holds a -true and passionate worship. All his life this love of Nature, which -was worship, had been his. It now fulfilled itself. Merged by love -into the consciousness of the Being loved, he _felt_ her -thoughts, her powers, and manifestations of life as his own. - -In a flash, of course, this all passed clearly before him; but there -was no time to dwell upon it. For the activity of his companion had -likewise become suddenly tremendous. He had risen into complete -revelation at last. His own had called him. He was off to join his -kind. - -The transformation came upon both of them, it seems, at once, but -in that moment of bewilderment, the Irishman only realized it first in -his leader. - -For on the edge of the advancing sunlight first this Cosmic Being -crouched, then rose with alert and springing movement, leaping to his -feet in a single bound that propelled him with a stride of more than a -man's two limbs. His great sides quivered as he shook himself. A roar, -similar to that sound the distance already swallowed, rolled forth -into the air. With head thrown back, chest forward, too, for all the -backward slant of the mighty shoulders, he stood there, grandly -outlined, pushing the wind before him. The great brown eyes shone -with the joy of freedom and escape--a superb and regal transformation. - -Urged by the audacity of his strange excitement, the Irishman obeyed -an impulse that came he knew not whence. The single word sprang to -his lips before he could guess its meaning, much less hold it back. - -"Lapithae...!" he cried aloud; "Lapithae...!" - -The stalwart figure turned with an awful spring as though it would -trample him to the ground. A moment the brown eyes flamed with a light of -battle. Then, with another roar, and a gesture that was somehow both huge -and simple, he seemed to rise and paw the air. The next second this -figure of the _Urwelt_, come once more into its own, bent down and -forward, leaped wonderfully--then, cantering, raced away across the -slopes to join his kind. He went like a shape of wind and cloud. The -heritage of racial memory was his, and certain words remained still -vividly evocative. That old battle with the Lapithae was but one item of -the scenes of ancient splendor lying pigeon-holed in his mighty Mother's -consciousness. The instant he had called, the Irishman himself lay caught -in lost memory's tumultuous whirl. The lonely world about him seemed of a -sudden magnificently peopled--sky, woods, and torrents. - -He watched a moment the fierce rapidity with which he sped toward the -mountains, the sound of his feet already merged in that other, vaster -tramping, and then he turned--to watch himself. For a similar -transformation was going forward in himself, and with the happiness of -wild amazement he saw it. Already, indeed, it was accomplished. All white -and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his -limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream -of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more -capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the -wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew -that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran. - -He ran, yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards -through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours brandishing -his arms he flew with a free, unfettered motion, traversing the surface -of the mother's mind and body. Free of the entire Earth he was. - -And as he raced to join the others, there passed again across his memory -faintly--it was like the little memory of some physical pain almost--the -picture of the boy who swam so strangely in the sea, the picture of the -parent's curious emanations on the deck, and, lastly, of those flying -shapes of cloud and wind his inner vision brought so often speeding over -long, bare hills. This was the final fragment of the outer world that -reached him.... - -He tore along the mountains in the dawn, the awful speed at last -explained. His going made a sound upon the wind, and like the wind -he raced. Far beyond him in the distance, he saw the shadow of that -disappearing host spreading upon the valleys like a mist. Faintly still -he caught their sound of roaring; but it was his own feet now that made -that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf. The landscape moved and opened, -gathering him in.... - -And, hardly had he gone, when there stole upon the place where he -had stood, a sweet and simple sound of music--the little piping of a -reed. It dropped down through the air, perhaps, or came from the forest -edge, or possibly the sunrise brought it--this ancient little sound of -fluting on those Pipes men call the Pipes of Pan.... - - - - -XXXVI - -"Here we but peak and dwindle - The clank of chain and crane, - The whirr of crank and spindle - Bewilder heart and brain; - The ends of our endeavor - Are wealth and fame, - Yet in the still Forever - We're one and all the same; - -"Yet beautiful and spacious - The wise, old world appears. - Yet frank and fair and gracious - Outlaugh the jocund years. - Our arguments disputing, - The universal Pan - Still wanders fluting--fluting-- - Fluting to maid and man. - Our weary well-a-waying - His music cannot still: - Come! let us go a-maying, - And pipe with him our fill." - ---W.E. HENLEY - - -In a detailed description, radiant with a wild loveliness of some -forgotten beauty, and of necessity often incoherent, the Irishman -conveyed to me, sitting in that dreary Soho restaurant, the passion of -his vision. With an astonishing vitality and a wealth of deep conviction -it all poured from his lips. There was no halting and no hesitation. Like -a man in trance he talked, and like a man in trance he lived it over -again while imparting it to me. None came to disturb us in our dingy -corner. Indeed there is no quieter place in all London town than the back -room of these eating-houses of the French Quarter between the hours of -lunch and dinner. The waiters vanish, the "patron" disappears; no -customers come in. But I know surely that its burning splendor came not -from the actual words he used, but was due to definite complete -transference of the vision itself into my own heart. I caught the fire -from his very thought. His heat inflamed my mind. Words, both in the -uttered and the written version, dimmed it all distressingly. - -And the completeness of the transference is proved for me by the fact -that I never once had need to ask a question. I saw and understood it -all as he did. And hours must have passed during the strange recital, for -toward the close people came in and took the vacant tables, the lights -were up, and grimy waiters clattered noisily about with plates and knives -and forks, thrusting an inky carte du jour beneath our very faces. - -Yet how to set it down I swear I know not. Nor he, indeed. The -notebooks that I found in that old sack of Willesden canvas were a -disgrace to any man who bid for sanity,--a disgrace to paper and pencil -too! - -All memory of his former life, it seems, at first, had fallen utterly -away; nothing survived to remind him of it; and thus he lost all standard -of comparison. The state he moved in was too complete to admit of -standards or of critical judgment. For these confine, imprison, and -belittle, whereas he was free. His escape was unconditioned. From the -thirty years of his previous living, no single fragment broke through. -The absorption was absolute. - -"I really do believe and know myself," he said to me across that -spotted table-cloth, "that for the time I was merged into the being of -another, a being immensely greater than myself. Perhaps old Stahl was -right, perhaps old crazy Fechner; and it actually was the consciousness -of the Earth. I can only tell you that the whole experience left no room -in me for other memories; all I had previously known was gone, wiped -clean away. Yet much of what came in its place is beyond me to describe; -and for a curious reason. It's not the size or splendor that prevent the -telling, but rather the sublime simplicity of it all. I know no language -today simple enough to utter it. Far behind words it lies, as difficult -of full recovery as the dreams of deep sleep, as the ecstasy of the -religious, elusive as the mystery of Kubla Khan or the Patmos visions of -St. John. Full recapture, I am convinced, is not possible at all in -words. - -"And at the time it did not seem like vision; it was so natural; -unstudied, unprepared, and ever there; spontaneous too and artless as -a drop of water or a baby's toy. The natural is ever the unchanging. My -God! I tell you, man, it was divine!" - -He made about him a vehement sweeping gesture with his arm which -emphasized more poignantly than speech the contrast he felt here where -we sat--tight, confining walls, small stifling windows, chairs to rest -the body, smothering roof and curtains, doors of narrow entrance and -exit, floors to lift above the sweet surface of the soil,--all of them -artificial barriers to shut out light and separate away from the Earth. -"See what we've come to!" it said plainly. And it included even his -clothes and boots and collar, the ridiculous hat upon the peg, the -unsightly "brolly" in the dingy corner. Had there been room in me for -laughter, I could well have laughed aloud. - - * * * * * - -For as he raced across that stretch of splendid mountainous Earth, -watching the sunrise kiss the valleys and the woods, shaking the dew -from his feet and swallowing the very wind for breath, he realized that -other forms of life similar to his own were everywhere about him--also -moving. - -"They were a part of the Earth even as I was. Here she was crammed -to the brim with them--projections of her actual self and being, -crowded with this incomparable ancient beauty that was strong as her -hills, swift as her running streams, radiant as her wild flowers. Whether -to call them forms or thoughts or feelings, or Powers perhaps, I swear, -old man, I know not. Her Consciousness through which I sped, drowned, -lost, and happy, wrapped us all in together as a mood contains its own -thoughts and feelings. For she _was_ a Being--of sorts. And I _was_ -in her mind, mood, consciousness, call it what you best can. These -other thoughts and presences I felt were the raw material of forms, -perhaps--Forces that when they reach the minds of men must clothe -themselves in form in order to be known, whether they be Dreams, or Gods, -or any other kind of inspiration. Closer than that I cannot get.... I -knew myself within her being like a child, and I felt the deep, eternal -pull--to simple things." - - * * * * * - -And thus the beauty of the early world companioned him, and all the -forgotten gods moved forward into life. They hovered everywhere, -immense and stately. The rocks and trees and peaks that half concealed -them, betrayed at the same time great hints of their mighty gestures. -Near him, they were; he moved toward their region. If definite sight -refused to focus on them the fault was not their own but his. He never -doubted that they could be seen. Yet, even thus partially, they -manifested--terrifically. He was aware of their overshadowing presences. -Sight, after all, was an incomplete form of knowing--a thing he had left -behind--elsewhere. It belonged, with the other limited sense-channels, -to some attenuated dream now all forgotten. Now he knew _all over._ He -himself was of them. - -"I am home!" it seems he cried as he ran cantering across the sunny -slopes. "At last I have found you! Home...!" and the stones shot wildly -from his thundering tread. - -A roar of windy power filled the sky, and far away that echoing -tramping paused to listen. - -"We have called you! Come...!" - -And the forms moved down slowly from their mountainous pedestals; -the woods breathed out a sigh; the running water sang; the slopes -all murmured through their grass and flowers. For a worshipper, strayed -from the outer world of the dead, stood within the precincts of their -ancient temple. He had passed the Angel with the flaming sword those -very dead had set there long ago. The Garden now enclosed him. He -had found the heart of the Earth, his mother. Self-realization in the -perfect union with Nature was fulfilled. He knew the Great At-onement. - - * * * * * - -The quiet of the dawn still lay upon the world; dew sparkled; the air was -keen and fresh. Yet, in spite of all this vast sense of energy, this -vigor and delight, O'Malley no longer felt the least goading of -excitement. There was this animation and this fine delight; but craving -for sensation of any kind, was gone. Excitement, as it tortured men in -that outer world he had left, could not exist in this larger state of -being; for excitement is the appetite for something not possessed, -magnified artificially till it has become a condition of disease. All -that he needed was now contained within himself; he was at-ease; and, -literally, that unrest which men miscall delight could touch him not nor -torture him again. - -If this were death--how exquisite! - -And Time was not a passing thing, for it lay, he says, somehow in an -ocean everywhere, heaped up in gulfs and spaces. It was as though he -could help himself and take it. That morning, had he so wished, could -last forever; he could go backwards and taste the shadows of the night -again, or forward and bask in the glory of hot noon. There were no parts -of things, and so no restlessness, no sense of incompleteness, no -divisions. - -This quiet of the dawn lay in himself, and, since he loved it, lay there, -cool and sweet and sparkling for--years; almost--forever. - - * * * * * - -Moreover, while this giant form of _Urwelt_-life his inner self had -assumed was new, it yet seemed somehow familiar. The speed and weight -and power caused him no distress, there was no detail that he could not -manage easily. To race thus o'er the world, keeping pace with an eternal -dawn, was as simple as for the Earth herself to spin through space. His -union with her was as complete as that. In every item of her being lay -the wonder of her perfect form--a sphere. It was complete. Nothing -could add to it. - -Yet, while all recollection of his former, pettier self was gone, he -began presently to remember--men. Though never in relation to himself, he -retained dimly a picture of that outer world of strife and terror. As a -memory of illness he recalled it--dreadfully, a nightmare fever from -which he had recovered, its horror already fading out. Cities and crowds, -poverty, illness, pain and all the various terror of Civilization, robbed -of the power to afflict, yet still hung hovering about the surface of his -consciousness, though powerless to break his peace. - -For the power to understand it vanished; no part of him knew sympathy -with it; so clearly he now saw himself sharing the Earth, that a vague -wonder filled him when he recalled the mad desires of men to possess -external forms of things. It was amazing and perplexing. How could they -ever have devised such wild and childish efforts--all in the -wrong direction? - -If that outer life were the real one how could any intelligent being -think it worth while to live? How could any thinking man hold up his -head and walk along the street with dignity if that was what he believed? -Was a man satisfied with it worth keeping alive at all? What bigger -scheme could ever use him? The direction of modern life today was -diametrically away from happiness and truth. - -Peace was the word he knew, peace and a singing joy. - - * * * * * - -He played with the Earth's great dawn and raced along these mountains -through her mind. _Of course>_ the hills could dance and sing and clap -their hands. He saw it clear. How could it be otherwise? They were -expressions of her giant moods--what in himself were thoughts--phases -of her ample, surging Consciousness.... - -He passed with the sunlight down the laughing valleys, spread with -the morning wind above the woods, shone on the snowy peaks, and -leaped with rushing laughter among the crystal streams. These were his -swift and darting signs of joy, words of his singing as it were. His main -and central being swung with the pulse of the Earth, too great for any -telling. - -He read the book of Nature all about him, yes, but read it singing. -He understood how this patient Mother hungered for her myriad lost -children, how in the passion of her summers she longed to bless them, -to wake their high yearnings with the sweetness of her springs, and to -whisper through her autumns how she prayed for their return...! - -Instinctively he read the giant Page before him. For "every form in -nature is a symbol of an idea and represents a sign or letter. A -succession of such symbols forms a language; and he who is a true child -of nature may understand this language and know the character of -everything. His mind, becomes a mirror wherein the attributes of natural -things are reflected and enter the field of his consciousness.... For man -himself is but a thought pervading the ocean of mind." - -Whether or not lie remembered these stammering yet pregnant words from -the outer world now left behind, the truth they shadowed forth rose up -and took him ... and so he flowed across the mountains like a thing of -wind and cloud, and so at length came up with the stragglers of that -mighty herd of _Urwelt_ life. He joined them in a river-bed of those -ancient valleys. They welcomed him and took him to themselves. - - * * * * * - -For the particular stratum, as it were, of the Earth's enormous -Collective Consciousness to which he belonged, or rather that part and -corner in which he was first at home, lay with these lesser ancient -forms. Although aware of far mightier expressions of her life, he could -not yet readily perceive or join them. And this was easily comprehensible -by the analogy of his own smaller consciousness. Did not his own mind -hold thoughts of various kinds that could not readily mingle? His -thoughts of play and frolic, for instance, could not combine with the -august and graver sentiments of awe and worship, though both could -dwell together in the same heart. And here apparently, as yet, he only -touched that frolicsome fringe of consciousness that knew these wild -and playful lesser forms. Thus, while he was aware of other more -powerful figures of wonder all about him, he never quite achieved their -full recognition. The ordered, deeper strata of her Consciousness to -which they belonged still lay beyond him. - -Yet everywhere he fringed them. They haunted the entire world. They -brooded hugely with a kind of deep magnificence that was like the slow -brooding of the Seasons; they rose, looming and splendid, through the -air and sky, proud, strong, and tragic. For, standing aloof from all the -rest, in isolation, like dreams in a poet's mind, too potent for -expression, they thus knew tragedy--the tragedy of long neglect and -loneliness. - -Seated on peak and ridge, rising beyond the summits in the clouds, -filling the valleys, spread over watercourse and forest, they passed -their life of lonely majesty--apart, their splendor too remote for him as -yet to share. Long since had Earth withdrawn them from the hearts of men. -Her lesser children knew them no more. But still through the deep -recesses of her further consciousness they thundered and were glad... -though few might hear that thunder, share that awful joy.... - -Even the Irishman--who in ordinary life had felt instinctively that -worship which is close to love, and so to the union that love -brings--even he, in this new-found freedom, only partially discerned -their presences. He felt them now, these stately Powers men once called -the gods, but felt them from a distance; and from a distance, too, they -saw and watched him come. He knew their gorgeous forms half dimmed by -a remote and veiled enchantment; knew that they reared aloft like -ancient towers, ruined by neglect and ignorance, starved and lonely, but -still hauntingly splendid and engaging, still terrifically alive. And it -seemed to him that sometimes their awful eyes flashed with the sunshine -over slope and valley, and that wherever they rested flowers sprang to -life. - -Their nearness sometimes swept him like a storm, and then the entire -herd with which he mingled would stand abruptly still, caught by a wave -of awe and wonder. The host of them stood still upon the grass, their -frolic held a moment, their voices hushed, only deep panting audible -and the soft shuffling of their hoofs among the flowers. They bowed -their splendid heads and waited--while a god went past them.... And -through himself, as witness of the passage, a soft, majestic power also -swept. With the lift of a hurricane, yet with the gentleness of dew, he -felt the noblest in himself irresistibly evoked. It was gone again as -soon as come. It passed. But it left him charged with a regal confidence -and joy. As in the mountains a shower of snow picks out the highest peaks -in white, tracing its course and pattern over the entire range, so in -himself he knew the highest powers--aspirations, yearnings, hopes--raised -into shining, white activity, and by these quickened splendors of -his soul could recognize the nature of the god who came so close. - - * * * * * - -And, keeping mostly to the river-beds, they splashed in the torrents, -played and leaped and cantered. From the openings of many a moist cave -others came to join them. Below a certain level, though, they never went; -the forests knew them not; they loved the open, windy heights. They -turned and circulated as by a common consent, wheeling suddenly together -as if a single desire actuated the entire mass. One instinct spread, as -it were, among the lot, shared instantly, conveying to each at once the -general impulse. Their movements in this were like those of birds whose -flight in coveys obeys the order of a collective consciousness of which -each single one is an item--expressions of one single Bird-Idea behind, -distributed through all. - -And O'Malley without questioning or hesitation obeyed, while yet he was -free to do as he wished alone. To do as they did was the greatest -pleasure, that was all. - -For sometimes with two of them, one fully-formed, the other of lesser -mold--he flew on little journeys of his own. These two seemed nearer -to him than the rest. He felt he knew them and had been with them -before. Their big brown eyes continually sought his own with pleasure. -It almost seemed as if they had all three been separated long away from -one another, and had at last returned. No definite memory of the -interval came back, however; the sea, the steamer, and the journey's -incidents all had faded--part of that world of lesser insignificant dream -where they had happened. But these two kept close to him; they ran and -danced together.... - -The time that passed included many dawns and nights and also many -noons of splendor. It all seemed endless, perfect, and serene. That -anything could finish here did not once occur to him. Complete things -cannot finish. He passed through seas and gulfs of glorious existence. -For the strange thing was that while he only remembered afterwards the -motion, play, and laughter, he yet had these other glimpses here and -there of some ordered and progressive life existing just beyond. It lay -hidden deeper within. He skimmed its surface; but something prevented -his knowing it fully. And the limitation that held him back belonged, -it seemed, to that thin world of trivial dreaming he had left behind. He -had not shaken it off entirely. It still obscured his sight. - -The scale and manner of this greater life faintly reached him, nothing -more. It may be that he only failed to bring back recollection, or it may -be that he did not penetrate deeply enough to know. At any rate, he -recognized that this sudden occasional passing by of vast deific figures -had to do with it, and that all this ocean of Earth's deeper -Consciousness was peopled with forms of life that obeyed some splendid -system of progressive ordered existence. To be gathered up in this one -greater consciousness was not the end.... Rather was it merely the -beginning.... - -Meantime he learned that here, among these lesser thoughts of the great -Mother, all the Pantheons of the world had first their origin--the -Greek, the Eastern, and the Northern too. Here all the gods that men -have ever half divined, still ranged the moods of Her timeless -consciousness. Their train of beauty, too, accompanied them. - - * * * * * - -I cannot half recall the streams of passionate description with which -his words clothed these glowing memories of his vision. Great pictures -of it haunt the background of my mind, pictures that lie in early mists, -framed by the stars and glimmering through some golden, flowered -dawn. Besides the huge outlines that stood breathing in the background -like dark mountains, there flitted here and there strange dreamy forms -of almost impossible beauty, slender as lilies, eyes soft and starry -shining through the dusk, hair flying past them like a rain of summer -flowers. Nymph-like they moved down all the pathways of the Earth's young -mind, singing and radiant, spring blossoms in the Garden of her -Consciousness.... And other forms, more vehement and rude, urged -to and fro across the pictures; crowding the movement; some playful -and protean; some clothed as with trees, or air, or water; and others -dark, remote, and silent, ranging her deeper layers of thought and dream, -known rarely to the outer world at all. - -The rush and glory of it all is more than my mind can deal with. I -gather, though, O'Malley saw no definite forms, but rather knew -"forces," powers, aspects of this Soul of Earth, facets she showed in -long-forgotten days to men. Certainly the very infusoria of his -imagination were kindled and aflame when he spoke of them. Through the -tangled thicket of his ordinary mind there shone this passion of an -uncommon loveliness and splendour. - - - - -XXXVII - -"The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we -really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things, so much -the more is snatched from inevitable time." - ---RICHARD JEFFERIES - - -In the relationship that his everyday mind bore to his present state -there lay, moreover, a wealth of pregnant suggestion. The bridge -connecting his former "civilized" condition with this cosmic experience -was a curious one. That outer, lesser state, it seemed, had known a -foretaste sometimes of the greater. And it was hence had come those -dreams of a Golden Age that used to haunt him. For he began now to -recall the existence of that outer world of men and women, though by -means of certain indefinite channels only. And the things he remembered -were not what the world calls important. They were moments when he had -known--beauty; beauty, however, not of the grandiose sort that holds the -crowd, but of so simple and unadvertised a kind that most men overlook it -altogether. - -He understood now why the thrill had been so wonderful. He saw -clearly why those moments of ecstasy he had often felt in Nature used -to torture him with an inexpressible yearning that was rather pain than -joy. For they were precisely what he now experienced when the viewless -figure of a god passed by him. Down there, out there, below--in that -cabined lesser state--they had been partial, but were now complete. -Those moments of worship he had known in woods, among mountains, -by the shores of desolate seas, even in a London street, perhaps at the -sight of a tree in spring or of a pathway of blue sky between the summer -clouds,--these had been, one and all, tentative, partial revelations of -the Consciousness of the Soul of Earth he now knew face to face. - -These were his only memories of that outer world. Of people, cities, -or of civilization apart from these, he had no single remembrance. - - * * * * * - -Certain of these little partial foretastes now came back to him, like -fragments of dream that trouble the waking day. - -He remembered, for instance, one definite picture: a hot autumn sun -upon a field of stubble where the folded corn-sheaves stood; thistles -waving by the hedges; a yellow field of mustard rising up the slope -against the sky-line, and beyond a row of peering elms that rustled in -the wind. The beauty of the little scene was somehow poignant. He -recalled it vividly. It had flamed about him, transfiguring the world; he -had trembled, yearning to see more, for just behind it he divined with -an exulting passionate worship this gorgeous, splendid Earth-Being with -whom at last he now actually moved. In that instant of a simple -loveliness her consciousness had fringed his own--had bruised it. He -had known it only by the partial channels of sight and smell and -hearing, but had felt the greater thing beyond, without being able to -explain it. And a portion of what he felt had burst in speech from his -lips. - -He was there, he remembered, with two persons, a man and woman -whose name and face, however, he could not summon, and he recalled -that the woman smiled incredulously when he spoke of the exquisite -perfume of those folded corn-sheaves in the air. She told him he -imagined it. He saw again the pretty woman's smile of incomprehension; he -saw the puzzled expression in the eyes of the man; he heard -him murmur something prosaic about the soul, about birds, too, and -the prospects of killing hundreds later--sport! He even saw the woman -picking her way with caution as though the touch of earth could stain -or injure her. He especially recalled the silence that had followed on -his words that sought to show them--Beauty.... He remembered, too, -above all, the sense of loneliness among men that it induced in himself. - -But the memory brought him a curious, sharp pain; and turning to -that couple who were now his playmates in this Garden of the Earth, -he called them with a singing cry and cantered over leagues of flowers, -wind, and sunshine before he stopped again. They leaped and danced -together, exulting in their spacious _Urwelt_ freedom ... want of -comprehension no longer possible. - - * * * * * - -The memory fled away. He shook himself free of it. Then others came in -its place, another and another, not all with people, blind, deaf, and -unreceptive, yet all of "common," simple scenes of beauty when something -vast had surged upon him and broken through the barriers that stand -between the heart and Nature. Such curious little scenes they were. In -most of them he had evidently been alone. But one and all had touched his -soul with a foretaste of this same nameless ecstasy that now he knew -complete. In every one the Consciousness of the Earth had "bruised" his -own. - -Utterly simple they had been, one and all, these partial moments of -blinding beauty in that lesser, outer world:--A big, brown, clumsy bee -he saw, blundering into the petals of a wild flower on which the dew -lay sparkling.... A wisp of colored cloud driving loosely across the -hills, dropping a purple shadow.... Deep, waving grass, plunging and -shaking in the wind that drew out its underworld of blue and silver over -the whole spread surface of a field.... A daisy closed for the night upon -the lawn, eyes tightly shut, hands folded.... A south wind whispering -through larches.... The pattering of summer rain upon young oak -leaves in the dawn.... Fingers of long blue distance upon dreamy -woods.... Anemones shaking their pale and starry little faces in the -wind.... The columned stillness of a pine-wood in the dusk.... Young -birch trees mid the velvet gloom of firs.... The new moon setting in a -cloud of stars.... The hush of stars in many a summer night.... Sheep -grazing idly down a sun-baked hill.... A path of moonlight on a -lake.... A little wind through bare and wintry woods.... Oh! he -recalled the wonder, loveliness, and passion of a thousand more! - -They thronged and passed, and thronged again, crowding one another:--all -golden moments of revelation when he had caught glimpses of the Earth, -and her greater Moods had swept him up into herself. Moments in which a -god had passed.... - -These were his only memories of that outer world he had left behind: -flashes of simple beauty. - -Was thus the thrill of beauty then explained? Was loveliness, as men -know it, a revelation of the Earth-Soul behind? And were the blinding -flash, the dazzling wonder, and the dream men seek to render permanent -in music, color, line and language, a vision of her nakedness? Down -there, the poets and those simple enough of heart to stand close to -Nature, could catch these whispered fragments of the enormous message, -told as in secret; but now, against her very heart he heard the -thunder of the thing complete. Now, in the glory of all naked bodily -forms,--of women, men and children, of swift animals, of flowers, trees, -and running water, of mountains and of seas,--he understood these -partial revelations of the great Earth-Soul that bore them, gave them -life. For one and all were channels for her loveliness. He saw the -beauty of the "natural" instincts, the passion of motherhood and -fatherhood--Earth's seeking to project herself in endless forms and -variety. He understood why love increased the heart and made it feel at -one with all the world. - - * * * * * - -Moreover in some amazing fashion he was aware that others from -that outer world beside himself had access here, and that from this -Garden of the Earth's deep central personality came all the inspiration -known to men. He divined that others were even now drawing upon it -like himself. The thoughts of the poets went past him like thin flames; -the dreams of millions--mute, inexpressible yearnings like those he -had himself once known--streamed by in pale white light, to shoot -forward with a little nesting rush into some great Figure ... and then -return in double volume to the dreaming heart whence first they issued. -Shadows, too, he saw, by myriads--faint, feeble gropings of men and -women seeking it eagerly, yet hardly knowing what they sought; but, -above all, long, singing, beautiful tongues of colored flame that were -the instincts of divining children and of the pure in heart. These came -in rippling floods unerringly to their goal, lingered for long periods -before returning. And all, he knew, were currents of the great Earth -Life, moods, thoughts, dreams--expressions of her various Consciousness -with which she mothered, fed, and blessed all whom it was possible to -reach. Their passionate yearning, their worship, made access possible. -Along the tenderest portions of her personality these latter came, as by -a spread network of infinitely delicate filaments that extended from -herself, deliciously inviting.... - - * * * * * - -The thing, however, that remained with him long after his return -to the normal state of lesser consciousness was the memory of those -blinding moments when a god went past him, or, as he phrased it in -another way, when he caught glimpses of the Earth--naked. For these -were instantaneous flashes of a gleaming whiteness, a dazzling and -supreme loveliness that staggered thought and arrested feeling, while yet -of a radiant simplicity that brought--for a second at least--a measure -of comprehension. - -He then knew not mere partial projections. He saw beyond--deep -down into the flaming center that gave them birth. The blending of his -being with the Cosmic Consciousness was complete enough for this. -He describes it as a spectacle of sheer glory, stupendous, even -terrifying. The refulgent majesty of it utterly possessed him. The shock -of its magnificence came, moreover, upon his entire being, and was not -really of course a "sight" at all. The message came not through any small -division of a single sense. With a massed yet soaring power it shook him -free of all known categories. He then fringed a region of yet greater -being wherein he tasted for a moment some secret comprehension of a true -"divinity." The deliverance into ecstasy was complete. - -In these flashing moments, when a second seemed a thousand years, -he further _understood_ the splendor of the stage beyond. Earth in her -turn was but a Mood in the Consciousness of the Universe, that Universe -again was mothered by another vaster one ... and the total that included -them all was not the gods--but God. - - - - -XXXVIII - - -The litter of disordered notebooks filled to the covers with fragments -of such beauty that they almost seem to burn with a light of their -own, lies at this moment before me on my desk. I still hear the rushing -torrent of his language across the spotted table-cloth in that dark -restaurant corner. But the incoherence seems only to increase with my -best efforts to combine the two. - -"Go home and dream it," as he said at last when I ventured a question -here and there toward the end of the recital. "You'll see it best that -way--in sleep. Get clear away from _me_, and my surface physical -consciousness. Perhaps it will come to you then." - -There remains, however, to record the manner of his exit from that -great Garden of the Earth's fair youth. And he tells it more simply. Or, -perhaps, it is that I understand it better. - -For suddenly, in the midst of all the joy and splendor that he tasted, -there came unbidden a strengthening of the tie that held him to his -"outer," lesser state. A wave of pity and compassion surged in upon him -from the depths. He saw the struggling millions in the prisons and cages -civilization builds. He felt _with_ them. No happiness, he understood, -could be complete that did not also include them all; and--he longed -to tell them. The thought and the desire tore across him burningly. - -"If only I can get this back to them!" passed through him, like a -flame. "I'll save the world by bringing it again to simple things! I've -only got to tell it and all will understand at once--and follow!" - -And with the birth of the desire there ran a deep convulsive sound -like music through the greater Consciousness that held him close. Those -Moods that were the gods, thronged gloriously about him, almost -pressing forwards into actual sight.... He might have lingered where -he was for centuries, or forever; but this thought pulled him back--the -desire to share his knowledge with the world, the passion to heal and -save and rescue. - -And instantly, in the twinkling of an eyelid, the Urwelt closed its gates -of horn and ivory behind him. An immense dark shutter dropped -noiselessly with a speed of lightning across his mind. He stood -without.... - -He found himself near the tumbled-down stone huts of a hamlet that he -recognized. He staggered, rubbed his eyes, and stared. A forest of beech -trees shook below him in a violent wind. He saw the branches tossing. A -Caucasian saddle-horse beside him nosed a sack that spilt its flour on -the ground at his feet, he heard the animal's noisy breathing; he noted -the sliding movement of the spilt flour before it finally settled; and -some fifty yards beyond him, down the slopes, he saw a human -figure--running. - -It was his Georgian guide. The man, half stooping, caught the woolen -bashlik that had fallen from his head. - -O'Malley watched the man complete the gesture. Still running, he -replaced the cap upon his head. - -And coming up to his ears upon the wind were the words of a broken French -sentence that he also recognized. Disjointed by terror, it completed an -interrupted phrase:-- - -"... one of them is close upon us. Hide your eyes! Save yourself!. -They come from the mountains. They are old as the stones ... run...!" - -No other living being was in sight. - - - - -XXXIX - -The extraordinary abruptness of the transition produced no bewilderment, -it seems. Realizing that without Rostom he would be in a position of -helplessness that might be serious, the Irishman put his hands to his -lips and called out with authority to the running figure of his -frightened guide. He shouted to him to stop. - -"There is nothing to fear. Come back! Are you afraid of a gust of wind?" - -And in his face and voice, perhaps too in his manner, was something -he had brought back from the vision, for the man stopped at once in -his headlong course, paused a moment to stare and question, and then, -though still looking over his shoulder and making occasional signs of -his religion, came slowly back to his employer's side again. - -"It has passed," said O'Malley in a voice that seemed to crumble in -his mouth. "It is gone again into the mountains whence it came. We are -safe. With me," he added, not without a secret sense of humor stirring -in him, "you will always be safe. I can protect us both." He felt as -normal as a British officer giving orders to his soldiers. And the -Georgian slowly recovered his composure, yet for a long time keeping -close to the other's side. - -The transition, thus, had been as sudden and complete as anything well -could be. O'Malley described it as the instantaneous dropping of a -shutter across his mind. The entire vision had lasted but a fraction of -a second, and in a fraction of a second, too, he had returned to his -state of everyday lesser consciousness. That blending with the Earth's -great Consciousness was but a flashing glimpse after all. The extension -of personality had been momentary. - -So absolute, moreover, was the return that at first, remembering -nothing, he took up life again exactly where he had left it. The guide -completed the gesture and the sentence which the vision had interrupted, -and O'Malley, similarly, resumed his own thread of thought and action. - -Only a hint remained. That, and a curious sense of interval, alone -were left to witness this flash of an immense vision,--of cosmic -consciousness--that apparently had filled so many days and nights. - -"It was like waking suddenly in the night out of deep sleep," he said; -"not of one's own accord, or gradually, but as when someone shakes -you out of slumber and you are wide awake at once. You have been -dreaming vigorously--thick, lively, crowded dreams, and they all vanish -on the instant. You catch the tail-end of the procession just as it's -diving out of sight. In less than a second all is gone." - -For this was the hint that remained. He caught the flying tail-end of -the vision. He knew he _had_ seen something. But, for the moment, that -was all. - -Then, by degrees and afterwards, the details re-emerged. In the days -that followed, while with Rostom he completed the journey already -planned, the deeper consciousness gave back its memory piece by piece; -and piece by piece he set it down in notebooks as best he could. The -memory was on deposit deep within him, and at intervals he tapped it. -Hence, of course, is due the confused and fragmentary character of those -bewildering entries; hence, at the same time, too, their truth and value. -For here was no imaginative dream concocted in a mood of high invention. -The parts were disjointed, incomplete, just as they came. The lesser -consciousness, it seems, could not contain the thing complete; nor to the -last, I judge, did he ever know complete recapture. - - * * * * * - -They wandered for two weeks and more about the mountains, meeting -various adventure by the way, reported duly in his letters of travel. -But these concerned the outer man and have no proper place in this -strange record ... and by the middle of July he found himself once more -in--civilization. At Michaelevo he said good-bye to Rostom and -took the train. - -And it was with the return to the conditions of modern life that the -reaction set in and stirred the deeper layers of consciousness to -reproduce their store of magic. For this return to what seemed the paltry -activities of an age of machinery, physical luxury, and superficial -contrivances brought him a sense of pain that was acute and trenchant, -more--a deep and poignant sense of loss. The yearnings, no longer -satisfied, began again to reassert themselves. It was not the actual -things the world seemed so busy about that pained him, but rather the -point of view from which the world approached them--those that it deemed -with one consent "important," and those, with rare exceptions, it -obviously deemed worth no consideration at all, and ignored. For himself -these values stood exactly reversed. - -The Vision then came back to him, rose from the depths, blinded his eyes -with maddening beauty, sang in his ears, possessed his heart and mind. He -burned to tell it. The world of tired, restless men, he felt, must -equally burn to hear it. Some vision of a simple life lived close to -Nature came before his inner eye as the remedy for the vast disease of -restless self-seeking of the age, the medicine that should cure the -entire world. A return to Nature was the first step toward the great -Deliverance men sought. And, most of all, he yearned to tell it first to -Heinrich Stahl. - -To hear him talk about it, as he talked perhaps to me alone, was -genuinely pathetic, for here, in Terence O'Malley, I thought to see the -essential futility of all dreamers nakedly revealed. His vision was so -fine, sincere, and noble; his difficulty in imparting it so painful; and -its marriage with practical action so ludicrously impracticable. At any -rate that combination of vision and action, called sometimes genius, -which can shake the world, assuredly was not his. For his was no -constructive mind; he was not "intellectual"; he _saw_, but with the -heart; he could not build. To plan a new Utopia was as impossible to him -as to shape even in words the splendor he had known and lived. Bricks and -straw could only smother him before he laid what most would deem -foundations. - -At first, too, in those days while waiting for the steamer in Batoum, -he kept strangely silent. Even in his own thoughts was silence. He could -not speak of what he knew. Even paper refused it. But all the time this -glorious winged thing, that yet was simple as the sunlight or the rain, -went by his side, while his soul knew the relief of some divine, proud -utterance that, he felt, could never know complete confession in speech -or writing. Later he stammered over it--to his notebooks and to me, -and partially also to Dr. Stahl. But at first it dwelt alone and hidden, -contained in this deep silence. - -The days of waiting he filled with walks about the streets, watching -the world with new eyes. He took the Russian steamer to Poti, and -tramped with a knapsack up the Tchourokh gorge beyond Bourtchka, -regardless of the Turkish gypsies and encampments of wild peoples on -the banks. The sense of personal danger was impossible; he felt the whole -world kin. That sense protected him. Pistol and cartridges lay in his -bag, forgotten at the hotel. - -Delight and pain lay oddly mingled in him. The pain he recognized of -old, but this great radiant happiness was new. The nightmare of modern -cheap-jack life was all explained; unjustified, of course, as he had -always dimly felt, symptom of deep disorder; all due, this feverish, -external business, to an odd misunderstanding with the Earth. Humanity -had somehow quarreled with her, claiming an independence that could not -really last. For her the centuries of this estrangement were but a little -thing perhaps--a moment or two in that huge life which counted a million -years to lay a narrow bed of chalk. They would come back in time. -Meanwhile she ever called. A few, perhaps, already dreamed of return. -Movements, he had heard, were afoot--a tentative endeavor here and there. -They heard, these few, the splendid whisper that, sweetly calling, ever -passed about the world. - -For her voice in the last resort was more potent than all others--an -enchantment that never wholly faded; men had but temporarily left her -mighty sides and gone astray, eating of trees of knowledge that brought -them deceptive illusions of a mad self-intoxication; fallen away into the -pains of separateness and death. Loss of direction and central control -was the result; the Babel of many tongues so clumsily invented, by which -all turned one against another. Insubordinate, artificial centers had -assumed disastrous command. Each struggled for himself against his -neighbors. Even religions fought to the blood. A single sect could damn -the rest of humanity, yet in the same breath sing complaisantly of its -own Heaven. - -Meanwhile She smiled in love and patience, letting them learn their -lesson; meanwhile She watched and waited while, like foolish children, -they toiled and sweated after futile transient things that brought no -single letter of content. She let them coin their millions from her -fairest thoughts, the gold and silver in her veins; and let them turn it -into engines of destruction, knowing that each "life lost," returned into -her arms and heart, crying with the pain of its wayward foolishness, the -lesson learned; She watched their tears and struggling just outside the -open nursery door, knowing they must at length return for food; and -while thus waiting, watching, She heard all prayers that reached her; She -answered them with love and forgiveness ever ready; and to the few who -realized their folly--naughtiness, perhaps, at worst it was--this side of -"death," She brought full measure of peace and joy and beauty. - -Not permanently could they hurt themselves, for evil was but distance -from her side, the ignorance of those who had wandered furthest into -the little dark labyrinth of a separated self. The "intellect" they were -so proud of had misled them. - -And sometimes, here and there across the ages, with a glory that refused -utterly to be denied, She thundered forth her old sweet message of -deliverance. Through poet, priest, or child she called her children -home. The summons rang like magic across the wastes of this dreary -separated existence. Some heard and listened, some turned back, some -wondered and were strangely thrilled; some, thinking it too simple to -be true, were puzzled by the yearning and the tears and went back to -seek for a more difficult way; while most, denying the secret glory in -their hearts, sought to persuade themselves they loved the strife and -hurrying fever best. - -At other times, again, she chose quite different ways, and sent the -amazing message in a flower, a breath of evening air, a shell upon the -shore; though oftenest, perhaps, it hid in a strain of music, a patch of -color on the sea or hills, a rustle of branches in a little twilight -wind, a whisper in the dusk or in the dawn. He remembered his own first -visions of it.... - -Only never could the summons come to her children through the intellect, -for this it was that led them first away. Her message enters ever by the -heart. - -The simple life! He smiled as he thought of the bald Utopias here and -there devised by men, for he had seen a truth whose brilliance smote -his eyes too dazzlingly to permit of the smallest corner of darkness. -Remote, no doubt, in time that day when the lion shall lie down with -the lamb and men shall live together in peace and gentleness; when the -inner life shall be admitted as the Reality, strife, gain, and loss -unknown because possessions undesired, and petty selfhood merged in the -larger life--remote, of course, yet surely not impossible. He had seen -the Face of Nature, heard her Call, tasted her joy and peace; and the -rest of the tired world might do the same. It only waited to be shown the -way. The truth he now saw so dazzling was that all who heard the call -might know it for themselves at once, cuirassed with shining love that -makes the whole world kin, the Earth a mother literally divine. Each soul -might thus provide a channel along which the summons home should pass -across the world. To live with Nature and share her greater -consciousness, _en route_ for states yet greater, nearer to the eternal -home--this was the beginning of the truth, the life, the way. - -He saw "religion" all explained: and those hard sayings that make men -turn away:--the imagined dread of losing life to find it; the counsel -of perfection that the neighbor shall be loved as self; the fancied -injury and outrage that made it hard for rich men to enter the kingdom. -Of these, as of a hundred other sayings, he saw the necessary truth. It -all seemed easy now. The world would see it with him; it must; it could -not help itself. Simplicity as of a little child, and selflessness as of -the mystic--these were the splendid clues. - -Death and the grave, indeed, had lost their victory. For in the stages -of wider consciousness beyond this transient physical phase he saw all -loved ones joined and safe, as separate words upgathered each to each -in the parent sentence that explains them, the sentence in the paragraph, -the paragraph in the whole grand story all achieved--and so at length -into the eternal library of God that consummates the whole. - -He saw the glorious series, timeless and serene, advancing to the climax, -and somehow understood that individuality at each stage was never lost -but rather extended and magnified. Love of the Earth, life close to -Nature, and denial of so-called civilization was the first step upwards. -In the Simple Life, in this return to Nature, lay the opening of the -little path that climbed to the stars and heaven. - - - - -XL - - -At the end of the week the little steamer dropped her anchor in the -harbor and the Irishman booked his passage home. He was standing on the -wharf to watch the unloading when a hand tapped him on the shoulder and -he heard a well-known voice. His heart leaped with pleasure. There were -no preliminaries between these two. - -"I am glad to see you safe. You did not find your friend, then?" - -O'Malley looked at the bronzed face beside him, noted the ragged -tobacco-stained beard, and saw the look of genuine welcome in the -twinkling brown eyes. He watched him lift his cap and mop that familiar -dome of bald head. - -"I'm safe," was all he answered, "because I found him." - -For a moment Dr. Stahl looked puzzled. He dropped the hand he held so -tightly and led him down the wharf. - -"We'll get out of this devilish sun," he said, leading the way among -the tangle of merchandise and bales, "it's enough to boil our brains." -They passed through the crowd of swarthy, dripping Turks, Georgians, -Persians, and Armenians who labored half naked in the heat, and moved -toward the town. A Russian gunboat lay in the Bay, side by side with -freight and passenger vessels. An oil-tank steamer took on cargo. The -scene was drenched in sunshine. The Black Sea gleamed like molten -metal. Beyond, the wooded spurs of the Caucasus climbed through haze -into cloudless blue. - -"It's beautiful," remarked the German, pointing to the distant coastline, -"but hardly with the beauty of those Grecian Isles we passed together. -Eh?" He watched him closely. "You're coming back on our steamer?" he -asked in the same breath. - -"It's beautiful," O'Malley answered ignoring the question, "because -it lives. But there is dust upon its outer loveliness, dust that has -gathered through long ages of neglect, dust that I would sweep away--I've -learnt how to do it. He taught me." - -Stahl did not even look at him, though the words were wild enough. He -walked at his side in silence. Perhaps he partly understood. For this -first link with the outer world of appearances was difficult for him to -pick up. The person of Stahl, thick-coated with the civilization whence -he came, had brought it, and out of the ocean of glorious vision in his -soul, O'Malley took at random the first phrases he could find. - -"Yes, I've booked a passage on your steamer," he added presently, -remembering the question. It did not seem strange to him that his -companion ignored both clues he offered. He knew the man too well -for that. It was only that he waited for more before he spoke. - -They went to the little table outside the hotel pavement where several -weeks ago they had drunk Kakhetian wine together and talked of deeper -things. The German called for a bottle, mineral water, ice, and -cigarettes. And while they sipped the cooling golden liquid, hats off and -coats on the backs of their chairs, Stahl gave him the news of the world -of men and events that had transpired meanwhile. O'Malley listened -vaguely as he smoked. It seemed remote, unreal, almost fantastic, this -long string of ugly, frantic happenings, all symptoms of some disordered -state that was like illness. The scream of politics, the roar and rattle -of flying-machines, financial crashes, furious labor upheavals, rumors of -war, the death of kings and magnates, awful accidents and strange turmoil -in enormous cities. Details of some sad prison life, it almost seemed, -pain and distress and strife the note that bound them all together. Men -were mastered by these things instead of mastering them. These -unimportant things they thought would make them free only imprisoned -them. - -They lunched there at the little table in the shade, and in turn the -Irishman gave an outline of his travels. Stahl had asked for it and -listened attentively. The pictures interested him. - -"You've done your letters for the papers," he questioned him, "and now, -perhaps, you'll write a book as well?" - -"Something may force its way out--come blundering, thundering out in -fragments, yes." - -"You mean you'd rather not--?" - -"I mean it's all too big and overwhelming. He showed me such blinding -splendors. I might tell it, but as to writing--!" He shrugged his -shoulders. - -And this time Dr. Stahl ignored no longer. He took him up. But not with -any expected words or questions. He merely said, "My friend, there's -something that I have to tell you--or, rather, I should say, to show -you." He looked most keenly at him, and in the old familiar way he placed -a hand upon his shoulder. His voice grew soft. "It may upset you; it may -unsettle--prove a shock perhaps. But if you are prepared, we'll go--" - -"What kind of shock?" O'Malley asked, startled a moment by the gravity of -manner. - -"The shock of death," was the answer, gently spoken. - -The Irishman only knew a swift rush of joy and wonder as he heard it. - -"But there is no such thing!" he cried, almost with laughter. "He -taught me that above all else. There is no death!" - -"There is 'going away,' though," came the rejoinder, spoken low; -"there is earth to earth and dust to dust--" - -"That's of the body--!" - -"That's of the body, yes," the older man repeated darkly. - -"There is only 'going home,' escape and freedom. I tell you there's -only that. It's nothing but joy and splendor when you really understand." - -But Dr. Stahl made no immediate answer, nor any comment. He paid -the bill and led him down the street. They took the shady side. Passing -beyond the skirts of the town they walked in silence. The barracks where -the soldiers sang, the railway line to Tiflis and Baku, the dome and -minarets of the church, were left behind in turn, and presently they -reached the hot, straight dusty road that fringed the sea. They heard the -crashing of the little waves and saw the foam creamily white against the -dark grey pebbles of the beach. - -And when they reached a small enclosure where thin trees were -planted among sparse grass all brown and withered by the sun, they -paused, and Stahl pointed to a mound, marked at either end by rough -stone boulder. A date was on it, but no name. O'Malley calculated the -difference between the Russian Calendar and the one he was accustomed -to. Stahl checked him. - -"The fifteenth of June," the German said. - -"The fifteenth of June, yes," said O'Malley very slowly, but with -wonder and excitement in his heart. "That was the day that Rostom -tried to run away--the day I saw him come to me from the trees--the -day we started off together ... to the Garden...." - -He turned to his companion questioningly. For a moment the rush -of memory was quite bewildering. - -"He never left Batoum at all, you see," Stahl continued, without -looking up. "He went straight to the hospital the day we came into port. -I was summoned to him in the night--that last night while you slept -so deeply. His old strange fever was upon him then, and I took him -ashore before the other passengers were astir. I brought him to the -hospital myself. And he never left his bed." He pointed down to the -little nameless grave at their feet where a wandering wind from the sea -just stirred the grasses. "That was the date on which he died." - -"He went away in the early morning," he added in a low voice that -held both sadness and sympathy. - -"He went home," said the Irishman, a tide of joy rising tumultuously -through his heart as he remembered. The secret of that complete and -absolute Leadership was out. He understood it all. It had been a -spiritual adventure to the last. - -Then followed a pause. - -In silence they stood there for some minutes. There grew no flowers on -that grave, but O'Malley stooped down and picked a strand of the withered -grass. He put it carefully between the pages of his notebook; and then, -lying flat against the ground where the sunshine fell in a patch of white -and burning glory, he pressed his lips to the crumbling soil. He kissed -the Earth. Oblivious of Stahl's presence, or at least ignoring it, he -worshipped. - -And while he did so he heard that little sound he loved so well--which -more than any words or music brought peace and joy, because it told his -Passion all complete. With his ears close to the earth he heard it, yet -at the same time heard it everywhere. For it came with the falling of the -waves upon the shore, through the murmur of the rustling branches -overhead, and even across the whispering of the withered grass about him. -Deep down in the center of the mothering Earth he heard it too in faintly -rising pulse. It was the exquisite little piping on a reed--the ancient -fluting of the everlasting Pan.... - -And when he rose he found that Stahl had turned away and was gazing at -the sea, as though he had not noticed. - -"Doctor," he cried, yet so softly it was a whisper rather than a call, "I -heard it then again; it's everywhere! Oh, tell me that you hear it too!" - -Stahl turned and looked at him in silence. There was a moisture in his -eyes, and on his face a look of softness that a woman might have worn. - -"I've brought it back, you see, I've brought it back. For that's the -message--that's the sound and music I must give to all the world. No -words, no book can tell it." His hat was off, his eyes were shining, his -voice broke with the passion of joy he yearned to share yet knew so -little how to impart. "If I can pipe upon the flutes of Pan the millions -all will listen, will understand, and--follow. Tell me, oh, tell me, that -_you_ heard it too!" - -"My friend, my dear young friend," the German murmured in a voice of real -tenderness, "you heard it truly--but you heard it in your heart. Few hear -the Pipes of Pan as you do. Few care to listen. Today the world is full -of other sounds that drown it. And even of those who hear," he shrugged -his shoulders as he led him away toward the sea,--"how few will care to -follow--how fewer still will _dare._" - -And while they lay upon the beach and watched the line of foam against -their feet and saw the seagulls curving idly in the blue and shining air, -he added underneath his breath--O'Malley hardly caught the murmur of his -words so low he murmured them:-- - -"The simple life is lost forever. It lies asleep in the Golden Age, and -only those who sleep and dream can ever find it. If you would keep your -joy, dream on, my friend! Dream on, but dream alone!" - - - - -XLI - - -Summer blazed everywhere and the sea lay like a blue pool of melted sky -and sunshine. The summits of the Caucasus soon faded to the east and -north, and to the south the wooded hills of the Black Sea coast -accompanied the ship in a line of wavy blue that joined the water and -the sky indistinguishably. - -The first-class passengers were few; O'Malley hardly noticed their -existence even. An American engineer, building a railway in Turkey, -came on board at Trebizond; there were one or two light women on their -way home from Baku, and the attaché of a foreign embassy from Teheran. -But the Irishman felt more in touch with the hundred peasant-folk -who joined the ship at Ineboli from the interior of Asia Minor -and were bound as third-class emigrants for Marseilles and far America. -Dark-skinned, wild-eyed, ragged, very dirty, they had never seen the sea -before, and the sight of a porpoise held them spellbound. They lived -on the after-deck, mostly cooking their own food, the women and children -sleeping beneath a large tarpaulin that the sailors stretched for -them across the width of deck. At night they played their pipes and -danced, singing, shouting, and waving their arms--always the same -tune over and over again. - -O'Malley watched them for hours together. He also watched the engineer, -the over-dressed women, the attaché. He understood the difference -between them as he had never understood it before. He understood the -difficulty of his task as well. How in the world could he ever explain a -single syllable of his message to these latter, or waken in them the -faintest echo of desire to know and listen. The peasants, though all -unconscious of the blinding glory at their elbows, stood far nearer to -the truth. - -"Been further east, I suppose?" the engineer observed, one afternoon -as the steamer lay off Broussa, taking on a little extra cargo of walnut -logs. He looked admiringly at the Irishman's bronzed skin. "Take a -better sun than this to put that on!" - -He laughed in his breezy, vigorous way, and the other laughed with -him. Previous conversations had already paved the way to a traveler's -friendship, and the American had taken to him. - -"Up in the mountains," he replied, "camping out and sleeping in the -sun did it." - -"The Caucasus! Ah, I'd like to get up there myself a bit. I'm told -they're a wonderful thing in the mountain line." - -Scenery for him was evidently a commercial commodity, or it was nothing. -It was the most up-to-date nation in the world that spoke--in the van of -civilization--representing the last word in progress due to triumph over -Nature. - -O'Malley said he had never seen anything like them. He described the -trees, the flowers, the tribes, the scenery in general; he dwelt upon -the vast uncultivated spaces, the amazing fruitfulness of the soil, the -gorgeous beauty above all. "I'd like to get the overcrowded cities of -England and Europe spread all over it," he said with enthusiasm. "There -is room for thousands there to lead a simple life close to Nature, in -health and peace and happiness. Even your tired millionaires could -escape their restless, feverish worries, lay down their weary burden of -possessions, and enjoy the earth at last. The poor would cease to be with -us; life become true and beautiful again--" He let it pour out of him, -building the scaffolding of his dream before him in the air and filling -it in with beauty. - -The American listened in patience, watching the walnut logs being -towed through the water to the side of the ship. From time to time he -spat on them, or into the sea. He let the beauty go completely past him. - -"Great idea, that!" he interrupted at length. "You're interested, I see, -in socialism and communistic schemes. There's money in them somewhere -right enough, if a man only could hit the right note at the first -go off. Take a bit of doing, though!" - -One of the women from Baku came up and leaned upon the rails a little -beyond them. The sickly odor of artificial scent wafted down. The -attaché strolled along the deck and ogled her. - -"Get a few of that sort to draw the millionaires in, eh?" he added -vulgarly. - -"Even those would come, yes," said the Irishman softly, realizing for -the first time within his memory that his gorge did not rise, "for they -too would change, grow clean and sweet and beautiful." - -The engineer looked sharply into his face, uncertain whether he had -not missed a clever witticism of his own kind. But O'Malley did not -meet his glance. His eyes were far away upon the snowy summit of -Olympus where a flock of fleecy clouds hung hovering like the hair of -the eternal gods. - -"They say there's timber going to waste that you could get to the coast -merely for the cost of drawing it--Caucasian walnut, too, to burn," the -other continued, getting on to safer ground, "and labor's dirt cheap. -There's every sort of mineral too God ever made. You could build light -railways and run the show by electricity. And water-power for the asking. -You'd have to get a Concession from Russia first though," he added, -spitting down upon a huge floating log in the clear sea underneath, -"and Russia's got palms that want a lot of greasing. I guess the natives, -too, would take a bit of managing." - -The woman beyond had shifted several feet nearer, and after a pause -the Irishman found no words to fill, his companion turned to address -a remark to her. O'Malley took the opening and moved away. - -"Here's my card, anyway," the American added, handing him an -over-printed bit of large pasteboard from a fat pocket-book that bore -his name and address in silver on the outside. "If you develop the scheme -and want a bit of money, count me in." - -He went to the other side of the vessel and watched the peasants on -the lower deck. Their dirt seemed nothing by comparison. It was only -on their clothes and bodies. The odor of this unwashed humanity was -almost sweet and wholesome. It cleansed the sickly taint of that other -scent from his palate; it washed his mind of thoughts as well. - -He stood there long in dreaming silence, while the sunlight on Olympus -turned from gold to rose, and the sea took on the colors of the fading -sky. He watched a dark Kurd baby sliding down the tarpaulin. A kitten was -playing with a loose end of rope too heavy for it to move. Further off a -huge fellow with bared chest and the hands of a colossus sat on a pile of -canvas playing softly on his wooden pipes. The dark hair fell across his -eyes, and a group of women listened idly while they busied themselves -with the cooking of the evening meal. Immediately beneath him a -splendid-eyed young woman crammed a baby to her naked breast. The kitten -left the rope and played with the tassel of her scarlet shawl. - -And as he heard those pipes and watched the grave, untamed, strong faces -of those wild peasant men and women, he understood that, low though they -might be in scale of evolution, there was yet absent from them the touch -of that deteriorating _something_ which civilization painted into those -other countenances. But whether the word he sought was degradation or -whether it was shame, he could not tell. In all they did, the way they -moved, their dignity and independence, there was this something, he felt, -that bordered on being impressive. Their wants were few, their worldly -possessions in a bundle, yet they had this thing that set them in a place -apart, if not above, these others:--beyond that simpering attaché for all -his worldly diplomacy, that engineer with brains and skill, those painted -women with their clever playing upon the feelings and desires of their -kind. There _was_ this difference that set the ragged dirty crew in a -proud and quiet atmosphere that made them seem almost distinguished by -comparison, and certainly more desirable. Rough and untutored though they -doubtless were, they still possessed unspoiled that deeper and more -elemental nature that bound them closer to the Earth. It needed training, -guidance, purifying; yes; but, in the last resort, was it not of greater -spiritual significance and value than the mode of comparatively -recently-developed reason by which Civilization had produced these other -types? - -He watched them long. The sun sank out of sight, the sea turned -dark, ten thousand stars shone softly in the sky, and while the steamer -swung about and made for peaked Andros and the coast of Greece, he -still stood on in reverie and wonder. The wings of his great Dream -stirred mightily ... and he saw pale millions of men and women trooping -through the gates of horn and ivory into that Garden where they should -find peace and happiness in clean simplicity close to the Earth.... - - - - -XLII - - -There followed four days then of sea, Greece left behind, Messina and the -Lipari Islands past; and the blue outline of Sardinia and Corsica began -to keep pace with them as they neared the narrow straits of Bonifacio -between them. The passengers came up to watch the rocky desolate shores -slip by so close, and Captain Burgenfelder was on the bridge. - -Grey-headed rocks rose everywhere close about the ship; overhead the -seagulls cried and circled; no vegetation was visible on either shore, no -houses, no abode of man--nothing but the lighthouses, then miles of -deserted rock dressed in those splendors of the sun's good-night. The -dinner-gong had sounded but the sight was too magnificent to leave, -for the setting sun floated on an emblazoned sea and stared straight -against them in level glory down the narrow passage. Unimaginable -colors painted sky and wave. The ruddy cliffs of bleak loneliness rose -from a bed of flame. Soft airs fanned the cheeks with welcome coolness -after the fierce heat of the day. There was a scent of wild honey in the -air borne from the purple uplands far, far away. - -"I wonder, oh, I wonder, if they realized that a god is passing -close...!" the Irishman murmured with a rising of the heart, "and that -here is a great mood of the Earth-Consciousness inviting them to peace! -Or do they merely see a yellow sun that dips beneath a violet sea...?" - -The washing of the water past the steamer's sides caught away the rest -of the half-whispered words. He remembered that host of many thousand -heads that bowed in silence while a god swept by.... It was almost -a shock to hear a voice replying close beside him:-- - -"Come to my cabin when you're ready. My windows open to the west. -We can be alone together. We can have there what food we need. You -would prefer it perhaps?" - -He felt the touch of that sympathetic hand upon his shoulder, and -bent his head to signify agreement. - -For a moment, face to face with that superb sunset, he had known a deep -and utter peace in the vast bosom of this greater soul about him. Her -consciousness again had bruised and fringed his own. Across that -delicately divided threshold the beauty and the power of the gods had -poured in a flood into his being. And only there was peace, only there -was joy, only there was the death of those ancient yearnings that -tortured his little personal and separate existence. The return to the -world was aching pain again. The old loneliness that seemed more than he -could bear swept icily through him, contracting life and freezing every -spring of joy. For in that single instant of return he felt pass into him -a loneliness of the whole travailing world, the loneliness of countless -centuries, the loneliness of all the races of the Earth who were exiled -and had lost the way. - -Too deep it lay for words or tears or sighs. The doctor's invitation -came most opportunely. And presently in silence he turned his back -upon that opal sky of dream from which the sun had gone, and walked -slowly down the deck toward Stahl's cabin. - -"If only I can share it with them," he thought as he went; "if only -men will listen, if only they will come. To keep it all to myself, to -dream alone, will kill me." - -And as he stood before the door it seemed he heard wild rushing -through the sky, the tramping of a thousand hoofs, a roaring of the -wind, the joy of that free, torrential passage with the Earth. He turned -the handle and entered the cozy room where weeks before they held the -inquest on the little empty tenement of flesh, remembering how that -other figure had once stood where he now stood--part of the sunrise, -part of the sea, part of the morning winds. - - * * * * * - -They had their meal almost in silence, while the glow of sunset filled -the cabin through the western row of port-holes, and when it was over -Stahl made the coffee as of old and lit the familiar black cigar. -Slowly O'Malley's pain and restlessness gave way before the other's -soothing quiet. He had never known him before so calm and gentle, so -sympathetic, almost tender. The usual sarcasm seemed veiled in sadness; -there was no irony in the voice, nor mockery in the eyes. - -Then to the Irishman it came suddenly that all these days while he -had been lost in dreaming the doctor had kept him as of old under close -observation. The completeness of his reverie had concealed from him this -steady scrutiny. He had been oblivious to the fact that Stahl had all the -time been watching, investigating, keenly examining. Abruptly he now -realized it. - -And then Stahl spoke. His tone was winning, his manner frank and -inviting. But it was the sadness about him that won O'Malley's confidence -so wholly. - -"I can guess," he said, "something of the dream you've brought with -you from those mountains. I can understand--more, perhaps, than you -imagine, and I can sympathize--more than you think possible. Tell me -about it fully--if you can. I see your heart is very full, and in the -telling you will find relief. I am not hostile, as you sometimes feel. -Tell me, my dear, young clear-eyed friend. Tell me your vision and your -hope. Perhaps I might even help ... for there may be things that I could -also tell to you in return." - -Something in the choice of words, none of which offended; in the -atmosphere and setting, no detail of which jarred; and in the degree of -balance between utterance and silence his world of inner forces just then -knew, combined to make the invitation irresistible. Moreover, he had -wanted to tell it all these days. Stahl was already half convinced. Stahl -would surely understand and help him. It was the psychological moment -for confession. The two men rose in the same moment, Stahl to -lock the cabin doors against interruption, O'Malley to set their chairs -more closely side by side so that talking should be easiest. - -And then without demur or hesitation he opened his heart to this -other and let the floodgates of his soul swing wide. He told the vision -and he told the dream; he told his hope as well. And the story of his -passion, filled in with pages from those notebooks he ever carried in -his pocket, still lasted when the western glow had faded from the sky -and the thick-sown stars shone down upon the gliding steamer. The -hush of night lay soft upon the world before he finished. - -He told the thing complete, much, I imagine, as he told it all to me upon -the roof of that apartment building and in the dingy Soho restaurant. He -told it without reservations--his life-long yearnings: the explanation -brought by the presence of the silent stranger upon the outward voyage: -the journey to the Garden: the vision that all life--from gods to -flowers, from men to mountains--lay contained in the conscious Being of -the Earth, that Beauty was but glimpses of her essential nakedness; and -that salvation of the world's disease of modern life was to be found in a -general return to the simplicity of Nature close against her mothering -heart. He told it all--in words that his passionate joy chose -faultlessly. - -And Heinrich Stahl in silence listened. He asked no single question. -He made no movement in his chair. His black cigar went out before -the half of it was smoked. The darkness hid his face impenetrably. - -And no one came to interrupt. The murmur of the speeding steamer, -and occasional footsteps on the deck as passengers passed to and fro in -the cool of the night, were the only sounds that broke the music of that -incurable idealist's impassioned story. - - - - -XLIII - - -And then at length there came a change of voice across the cabin. The -Irishman had finished. He sank back in the deep leather chair, exhausted -physically, but with the exultation of his mighty hope still pouring at -full strength through his heart. For he had ventured further than ever -before and had spoken of a possible crusade--a crusade that should preach -peace and happiness to every living creature. - -And Dr. Stahl, in a voice that showed how deeply he was moved, asked -quietly:-- - -"By leading the nations back to Nature you think they shall advance -to Truth at last?" - -"With time," was the reply. "The first step lies there:--in changing -the direction of the world's activities, changing it from the transient -Outer to the eternal Inner. In the simple life, external possessions -unnecessary and recognized as vain, the soul would turn within and -seek Reality. Only a tiny section of humanity has time to do it now. -There is no leisure. Civilization means acquirement for the body: it -ought to mean development for the soul. Once sweep aside the trash -and rubbish men seek outside themselves today, and the wings of their -smothered souls would stir again. Consciousness would expand. Nature -would draw them first. They would come to feel the Earth as I did. Self -would disappear, and with it this false sense of separateness. The -greater consciousness would waken in them. The peace and joy and -blessedness of inner growth would fill their lives. But, first, this -childish battling to the death for external things must cease, and -Civilization stand revealed for the bleak and empty desolate thing it -really is. It leads away from God and from the things that are eternal." - -The German made no answer; O'Malley ceased to speak; a long silence -fell between them. Then, presently, Stahl relighted his cigar, and -lapsing into his native tongue--always a sign with him of deepest -seriousness--he began to talk. - -"You've honored me," he said, "with a great confidence; and I am deeply, -deeply grateful. You have told your inmost dream--the thing men find it -hardest of all to speak about." He felt in the darkness for his -companion's hand and held it tightly for a moment. He made no other -comment upon what he had heard. "And in return--in some small way of -return," he continued, "I may ask you to listen to something of my own, -something of possible interest. No one has ever known it from my lips. -Only, in our earlier conversations on the outward voyage, I hinted at it -once or twice. I sometimes warned you--" - -"I remember. You said he'd 'get' me, 'win' me over--'appropriation' was -the word you used." - -"I suggested caution, yes; urged you not to let yourself go too -completely; told you he represented danger to yourself, and to humanity -as it is organized today--" - -"And all the rest," put in O'Malley a shade impatiently. "I remember -perfectly." - -"Because I knew what I was talking about." The doctor's voice came across -the darkness somewhat ominously. And then he added in a louder tone, -evidently sitting forward as he said it: "For the thing that has happened -to yourself as I foresaw it would, had already _almost_ happened to me -too!" - -"To you, doctor, too?" exclaimed the Irishman in the moment's pause -that followed. - -"I saved myself just in time--by getting rid of the cause." - -"You discharged him from the hospital, because you were afraid!" He said -it sharply as though are instant of the old resentment had flashed up. - -By way of answer Stahl rose from his chair and abruptly turned up the -electric lamp upon the desk that faced them across the cabin. Evidently -he preferred the light. O'Malley saw that his face was white and very -grave. He grasped for the first time that the man was speaking -professionally. The truth came driving next behind it--that Stahl -regarded him as a patient. - - * * * * * - -"Please go on, doctor," he said, keenly on the watch. "I'm deeply -interested." The wings of his great dream still bore him too far aloft -for him to feel more than the merest passing annoyance at his discovery. -Resentment had gone too. Sadness and disappointment for an instant -touched him perhaps, but momentarily. In the end he felt sure that -Stahl would stand at his side, completely won over and convinced. - -"You had a similar experience to my own, you say," he urged him. "I -am all eagerness and sympathy to hear." - -"We'll talk in the open air," the doctor answered, and ringing the bell -for the steward to clear away, he drew his companion out to the deserted -decks. They moved toward the bows, past the sleeping peasants. The stars -were mirrored in a glassy sea and toward the north the hills of Corsica -stood faintly outlined in the sky. It was already long after midnight. - -"Yes, a similar thing nearly happened to me," he resumed as they settled -themselves against a coil of rope where only the murmur of the washing -sea could reach them, "and might have happened to others too. Inmates of -that big _Krankenhaus_ were variously affected. My action, tardy I must -admit, saved myself and them." - -And the German then told his story as a man might tell of his escape from -some grave disaster. In the emphatic sentences of his native language he -told it, congratulating himself all through. The Russian had almost won -him over, gained possession of his heart and mind, persuaded him, but in -the end had failed--because the other ran away. It was like hearing a man -describe an attempt to draw him into Heaven, then boast of his escape. -His caution and his judgment, as he put it, saved him, but to the -listening Celt it rather seemed that his compromise it was that damned -him. The Kingdom of Heaven is hard to enter, for Stahl had possessions -not of the wood and metal order, but possessions of the brain and reason -he was too proud to forego completely. They kept him out. - -With increasing sadness, too, he heard it; for here he realized was the -mental attitude of an educated, highly civilized man today--a -representative type regarded by the world as highest. It was this he had -to face. Moreover Stahl was more than merely educated, he was -understandingly sympathetic, meeting the great dream halfway; seeing in -it possibilities; admitting its high beauty, and even sometimes speaking -of it with hope and a touch of enthusiasm. Its originator none the less -he regarded as a reactionary dreamer, an unsettling and disordered -influence, a patient, if not even something worse! - -Stahl's voice and manner were singular while he told it all, revealing -one moment the critical mind that analyzed and judged, and the next -an enthusiasm almost of the mystic. Alternately, like the man and -woman of those quaint old weather-glasses, each peered out and showed -a face, the reins of compromise yet ever seeking to hold them well in -leash and drive them together. - -Hardly, it seems, had the strange Russian been under his care a week -before he passed beneath the sway of his curious personality and -experienced the attack of singular emotions upon his heart and mind. - -He described at first the man's arrival, telling it with the calm and -balanced phrases a doctor uses when speaking merely of a patient who -had stirred his interest. He first detailed the method of suggestion he -had used to revive the lapsed memory--and its utter failure. Then he -passed on to speak of him more generally: but briefly and condensed. - -"The man," he said, "was so engaging, so docile, his personality -altogether so attractive and mysterious, that I took the case myself -instead of delegating it to my assistants. All efforts to trace his past -collapsed. It was as if he had drifted into that little hotel out of the -night of time. Of madness there was no evidence whatever. The association -of ideas in his mind, though limited, was logical and rigid. His health -was perfect, barring strange, sudden fever; his vitality tremendous; -yet he ate most sparingly and the only food he touched was fruit and -milk and vegetables. Meat made him sick, the huge frame shuddered -when he saw it. And from all the human beings in the place with whom -he came in contact he shrank with a kind of puzzled dismay. With animals, -most oddly it seemed, he sought companionship; he would run to the window -if a dog barked, or to hear a horse's hoofs; a Persian cat belonging to -one of the nurses never left his side, and I have seen the trees in the -yard outside his window thick with birds, and even found them in the room -and on the sill, flitting about his very person, unafraid and singing. - -"With me, as with the attendants, his speech was almost nil--laconic -words in various languages, clipped phrases that sometimes combined -Russian, French, or German, other tongues as well. - -"But, strangest of all, with animal life he seemed to hold this kind -of communication that was Intelligible both to himself and them. Animals -certainly were 'aware' of him. It was not speech. It ran in a deep, -continuous murmur like a droning, humming sound of wind. I took the hint -thus faintly offered. I gave him his freedom in the yards and gardens. -The open air and intercourse with natural life was what he craved. The -sadness and the air of puzzled fretting then left his face, his eyes grew -bright, his whole presentment happier; he ran and laughed and even sang. -The fever that had troubled him all vanished. Often myself I took the -place of nurse or orderly to watch him, for the man's presence more than -interested me: it gave me a renewed sense of life that was exhilarating, -invigorating, delightful. And in his appearance, meanwhile, something -that was not size or physical measurement, turned--tremendous. - -"A part of me that was not mind--a sort of forgotten instinct blindly -groping--came of its own accord to regard him as some loose fragment -of a natural, cosmic life that had somehow blundered down into a -human organism it sought to use.... - -"And then it was for the first time I recognized the spell he had cast -upon me; for, when the Committee decided there was no reason to keep -him longer, I urged that he should stay. Making a special plea, I took -him as a private patient of my own. I kept him under closer personal -observation than ever before. I needed him. Something deep within me, -something undivined hitherto, called out into life by his presence, could -not do without him. This new craving, breakingly wild and sweet, awoke -in my blood and cried for him. His presence nourished it in me. Most -insidiously it attacked me. It stirred deep down among the roots of my -being. It 'threatened my personality' seems the best way I can put it; -for, turning a critical analysis upon it, I discovered that it was an -undermining and revolutionary change going steadily forward in my -character. Its growth had hitherto been secret. When I first recognized -its presence, the thing was already strong. For a long time, it had been -building. - -"And the change in a word--you will grasp my meaning from the shortest -description of essentials--was this: that ambition left me, ordinary -desire crumbled, the outer world men value so began to fade." - -"And in their place?" cried O'Malley breathlessly, interrupting for -the first time. - -"Came a rushing, passionate desire to escape from cities and live for -beauty and simplicity 'in the wilderness'; to taste the life _he_ -seemed to know; to go out blindly with him into woods and desolate -places, and be mixed and blended with the loveliness of Earth and Nature. -This was the first thing I knew. It was like an expansion of my normal -world--almost an extension of consciousness. It somehow threatened my -sense of personal identity. And--it made me hesitate." - -O'Malley caught the tremor in his voice. Even in the telling of it the -passion plucked at him, for here, as ever, he stood on the border-line of -compromise, his heart tempting him toward salvation, his brain and -reason tugging at the brakes. - -"The sham and emptiness or modern life, its drab vulgarity, the -unworthiness of its very ideals stood appallingly revealed before some -inner eye just opening. I felt shaken to the core of what had seemed -hitherto my very solid and estimable self. How the man thus so powerfully -affected me lies beyond all intelligible explanation. To use the obvious -catchword 'hypnotism' is to use a toy and stop a leak with paper. For his -influence was _unconsciously_ exerted. He cast no net of clever, -persuasive words about my thought. Out of that deep, strange silence of -the man it somehow came. His actions and his simple happiness of face and -manner--both in some sense the raw material of speech perhaps--may have -operated as potently suggestive agents; but no adequate causes to justify -the result, apart from the fantastic theories I have mentioned, have ever -yet come within the range of my understanding. I can only give you the -undeniable effects." - -"Your sense of extended consciousness," asked his listener, "was this -continuous, once it had begun?" - -"It came in patches," Stahl continued. "My normal, everyday self was -thus able to check it. While it derided, commiserated this everyday self, -the latter stood in dread of it and even awe. My training, you see, -regarded it as symptom of disorder, a beginning of unbalance that might -end in insanity, the thin wedge of a dissociation of the personality -Morton Prince and others have described." - -His speech grew more and more jerky, even incoherent; evidently the -material had not even now been fully reduced to order in his mind. - -"Among other curious symptoms I soon established that this subtle -spreading of my consciousness grew upon me especially during sleep. -The business of the day distracted, scattered it. On waking in the -morning, as with the physical fatigue that comes toward the closing of -the day, it was strongest. - -"And so, in order to examine it closely when in fullest manifestation, -I came to spend the nights with him. I would creep in while he slept -and stay till morning, alternately sleeping and waking myself. I watched -the two of us together. I also watched the 'two' in me. And thus it was -I made the further strange discovery that the influence _he_ exerted on -me was strongest while he slept. It is best described by saying that in -his sleep I was conscious that he sought to draw me with him--away -somewhere into his own wonderful world--the state or region, that is, -where he manifested completely instead of partially as I knew him here. -His personality was a channel somewhere out into a living, conscious -Nature...." - -"Only," interrupted O'Malley, "you felt that to yield and go involved -some nameless inner catastrophe, and so resisted?" He chose his phrase -with purpose. - -"Because I discovered," was the pregnant answer, given steadily while -he watched his listener closely through the darkness, "that this desire -for escape the man had wakened in me was nothing more or less than the -desire to leave the world, to leave the conditions that prevented--in -fact to leave the body. My discontent with modern life had gone as far -as that. It was the birth of the suicidal mania." - - * * * * * - -The pause that followed the words, on the part of Dr. Stahl at any -rate, was intentional. O'Malley held his peace. The men shifted their -places oil the coil of rope, for both were cramped and stiff with the -lengthy session. For a minute or two they leaned over the bulwarks and -watched the phosphorescent foam in silence. The blue mountainous shores -slipped past in shadowy line against the stars. But when they sat down -again their relative positions were not what they had been before. Dr. -Stahl had placed himself between his listener and the sea. And O'Malley -did not let the manoeuvre escape him. Smiling to himself he noticed it. -Just as surely he noticed, too, that the whole recital was being told him -with a purpose. - -"You really need not be afraid," he could not resist saying. "The idea -of escape _that_ way has never even come to me at all. And, anyhow, I've -far too much on hand first in telling the world my message." He laughed -in the silence that took his words, for Stahl said nothing and made as -though he had not heard. But the Irishman understood that it was in -the spirit of feeble compromise that danger lay--if danger there was at -all, and he himself was far beyond such weakness. His eye was single -and his body full of light, and the faith that plays with mountains had -made him whole. Return to Nature for him involved no denial of human -life, nor depreciation of human interests, but only a revolutionary -shifting of values. - -"And it was one night while he slept and I watched him in the little -room," resumed the German as though there had been no interruption, -"I noticed first so decisively this growing of a singular size about him -I have already mentioned, and grasped its meaning. For the bulk of the -man while growing--emerging, rather, I should say--assumed another -shape than his own. It was not my eyes that saw it. I saw him as _he felt -himself to be_. The creature's personality, his essential inner being, -was acting directly upon my own. His influence was at me from another -point or angle. First the emotions, then the senses you see. It was a -finely organized attack. - -"I definitely understood at last that my mind was affected--and proved it -too, for the instant effort I made at recovery resulted in my seeing him -normal again. The size and shape retreated the moment I denied them." - -O'Malley noticed how the speaker's voice lingered over the phrase. -Again he knew the intention of the pause that followed. He held his -peace, however, and waited. - -"Nor was sight the only sense affected," Stahl continued, "for smell -and hearing also brought their testimony. Through all but touch, -indeed, the hallucination attacked me. For sometimes at night while I -sat up watching in the little room, there rose outside the open window -in the yards and gardens a sound of tramping, a distant roaring as of -voices in a rising wind, a rushing, hollow murmur, confused and deep -like that of forests, or the swift passage of a host of big birds across -the sky. I heard it, both in the air and on the ground--this tramping on -the lawns, this curious shaking of the atmosphere. And with it at the -same time a sharp and mingled perfume that made me think of earth -and leaves, of flowers after rain, of plains and open spaces, most -singular of all--of animals and horses. - -"Before the firm denial of my mind, they vanished, just as the change -of form had vanished. But both left me weaker than they found me, -more tender to attack. Moreover, I understood most plainly, that they -emanated all from him. These 'emanations' came, too, chiefly, as I -mentioned, whilst he slept. In sleep, it seemed, he set them free. The -slumber of the body disengaged them. And then the instinct came to -warn me--presenting itself with the authority of an unanswerable -intuition--the realization, namely, that if, for a single moment in his -presence, I slept, the changes would leap forward in my own being, and -I should join him." - -"Escape! Know freedom in a larger consciousness!" cried the other. - -"And for a man of my point of view and training to have permitted -such a conviction at all," he went on, the interruption utterly ignored -again, "proves how far along the road I had already traveled without -knowing it. Only at the time I was not aware of this. It was the shock -of full discovery later that brought me to my senses, when, seeking to -withdraw,--I found I could not." - -"And so you ran away." It came out bluntly enough, with a touch of -scorn but ill concealed. - -"We discharged him. But before that came there was more I have to -tell you--if you still care to hear it." - -"I'm not tired, if that's what you mean. I could listen all night, as far -as that goes." - -He rose to stretch his legs a moment, and Stahl rose too--instantly. -Together they leaned over the bulwarks. The German's hat was off and -the air made by the steamer's passage drew his beard out. The warm soft -wind brought odors of sea and shore. It caressed their faces, then passed -on across those sleeping peasants on the lower deck. The masts and -rigging swung steadily against the host of stars. - -"Before I thus knew myself half caught," continued the doctor, standing -now close enough beside him for actual contact, "and found it difficult -to get away, other things had happened, things that confirmed the change -so singularly begun in me. They happened everywhere; confirmation came -from many quarters; though slight enough, they filled in all the gaps and -crevices, strengthened the joints, and built the huge illusion round me -all complete until it held me like a prison. - -"And they are difficult to tell. Only, indeed, to yourself who underwent -a similar experience up there in the mountains, could they bring much -meaning. You had the same temptation and you--weathered the same storm." -He caught O'Malley's arm a moment and held it. "You escaped this madness -just as I did, and you will realize what I mean when I say that the -sensation of losing my sense of personal identity became so dangerously, -so seductively strong. The feeling of extended consciousness became -delicious--too delicious to resist. A kind of pagan joy and exultation -known to some in early youth, but put away with the things of youth, -possessed me. In the presence of this other's soul, so strangely powerful -in its silence and simplicity, I felt as though I touched new sources of -life. I tapped them. They poured down and flooded me--with dreams--dreams -that could really haunt--with unsettling thoughts of glory and delight -_beyond the body_. I got clean away into Nature. I felt as though some -portion of me just awakening reached out across him into rain and -sunshine, far up into the sweet and starry sky--as a tree growing out of -a thicket that chokes its lower part finds light and freedom at the top." - -"It caught you badly, doctor," O'Malley murmured. "The gods came close!" - -"So badly that I loathed the prisoned darkness that held me so thickly -in the body. I longed to know my being all dispersed through Nature, -scattered with dew and wind, shining with the star-light and the sun. -And the manner of escape I hinted to you a little while ago came to -seem right and necessary. Lawful it seemed, and obvious. The mania -literally obsessed me, though still I tried to hide it even from myself -... and struggled in resistance." - -"You spoke just now of other things that came to confirm it," the -Irishman said while the other paused to take breath. All this he knew. -He grew weary of Stahl's clever laboring the point that it was madness. -A little knowledge is ever dangerous, and he saw so clearly why the -hesitation of the merely intellectual man had led him into error. "Did -you mean that others acknowledged this influence as well as yourself?" - -"You shall read that for yourself tomorrow," came the answer, "in the -detailed report I drew up afterwards; it is far too long to tell you now. -But, I may mention something of it. That breaking out of patients was -a curious thing, their trying to escape, their dreams and singing, their -efforts sometimes to approach his room, their longing for the open and -the gardens; the deep, prolonged entrancing of a few; the sounds of -rushing, tramping that they, too, heard, the violence of some, the silent -ecstasy of others. The thing may find its parallel, perhaps, in the -collective mania that sometimes afflicts religious communities, in -monasteries or convents. Only here there was no preacher and eloquent -leader to induce hysteria--nothing but that silent dynamo of power, -gentle and winning as a little child, a being who could not put a phrase -together, exerting his potent spell unconsciously, and chiefly while he -slept. - -"For the phenomena almost without exception came in the night, and often -at their fullest strength, as afterwards reported to me, while I dozed in -his room and watched beside his motionless and slumbering form. Oh, and -there was more as well, much more, as you shall read. The stories my -assistants brought me, the tales of frightened nurse and warder, the -amazing yarns the porter stammered out, of strangers who had rung the -bell at dawn, trying to push past him through the door, saying they were -messengers and had been summoned, sent for, had to come,--large, curious, -windy figures, or, as he sometimes called them with unconscious humor, -'like creatures out of fairy books or circuses' that always vanished as -suddenly as they came. Making every allowance for excitement and -exaggeration, the tales were strange enough, I can assure you, and the -way many of the patients knew their visions intensified, their illusions -doubly strengthened, their efforts even to destroy themselves in many -cases almost more than the staff could deal with--all this brought the -matter to a climax and made my duty very plain at last." - -"And the effect upon yourself--at its worst?" asked his listener quietly. - -Stahl sighed wearily a little as he answered with a new-found sadness -in his tone. - -"I've told you briefly that," he said; "repetition cannot strengthen it. -The worthlessness of the majority of human aims today expresses it -Best--what you have called yourself the 'horror of civilization.' The -vanity of all life's modern, so-called up-to-date tendencies for outer, -mechanical developments. A wild, mad beauty streaming from that man's -personality overran the whole place and caught the lot of us, myself -especially, with a lust for simple, natural things, and with a passion -for spiritual beauty to accompany them. Fame, wealth, position seemed the -shadows then, and something else it's hard to name announced itself as -the substance.... I wanted to clear out and live with Nature, to know -simplicity, unselfish purposes, a golden state of childlike existence -close to dawns and dew and running water, cared for by woods and blessed -by all the winds...." He paused again for breath, then added:-- - -"And that's just where the mania caught at me so cunningly--till I -saw it and called a halt." - -"Ah!" - -"For the thing I sought, the thing _he_ knew, and perhaps remembered, -was not possible _in the body_. It was a spiritual state--" - -"Or to be known subjectively!" O'Malley checked him. - -"I am no lotus-eater by nature," he went on with energy, "and so I -fought and conquered it. But first, I tell you, it came upon me like a -tempest--a hurricane of wonder and delight. I've always held, like -yourself perhaps, that civilization brings its own army of diseases, and -that the few illnesses known to ruder savage races can be cured by simple -means the earth herself supplies. And along this line of thought the -thing swept into me--the line of my own head-learning. This was natural -enough; natural enough, too, that it thus at first deceived me. - -"For the quack cures of history come to this--herb simples and the -rest; only we know them now as sun-cure, water-cure, open-air cure, old -Kneipp, sea-water, and a hundred others. Doctors have never swarmed -before as they do now, and these artificial diseases civilization brings -in such quantity seemed all at once to mean the abeyance of some central -life or power men ought to share with--Nature.... You shall read it -all in my written report. I merely wish to show you now how the -insidious thing got at me along the line of my special knowledge. I saw -the truth that priests and doctors are the only possible and necessary -'professions' in the world, and--that they should be really but a single -profession...." - - - - -XLIV - - -He drew suddenly back with a kind of jerk. It was as though he realized -abruptly that he had said too much--had overdone it. He took his -companion by the arm and led him down the decks. - -As they passed the bridge the Captain called out a word of welcome -to them; and his jolly, boisterous laugh ran down the wind. The -American engineer came from behind a dark corner, almost running -into them; his face was flushed. "It's like a furnace below," he said in -his nasal familiar manner; "too hot to sleep. I've run up for a gulp of -air." He made as though he would join them. - -"The wind's behind us, yes," replied the doctor in a different tone, -"and there's no draught." With a gesture, half bow, half dismissal, he -made even this thick-skinned member of "the greatest civilization on -earth" understand he was not wanted. And they turned at the cabin door, -O'Malley a moment wondering at the admirable dignity with which the -"little" man had managed the polite dismissal. - -Himself, perhaps, he would not have minded the diversion. He was a little -weary of the German's long recital. The confession had not been complete, -he felt. Much had been held back. It was not altogether straightforward. -The dishonesty which hides in compromise peeped through it everywhere. - -And the incoherence of the latter part had almost bored him. For it -was, he easily divined, a studied incoherence. It was meant to touch a -similar weakness in himself--if there. But it was _not_ there. He saw -through the whole manoeuvre. Stahl wished to warn and save him by -showing that the experience they had partly shared was nothing but a -strange mental disorder. He wished to force in this subtle way his own -interpretation of it upon his friend. Yet at the same time the intuitive -Irishman discerned that other tendency in the man which would so -gladly perhaps have welcomed a different explanation, and even in some -fashion did actually accept it. - -O'Malley smiled inwardly as he watched him prepare the coffee as of -old. And patiently he waited for the rest that was to come. In a certain -sense it all was useful. It would be helpful later. This was an attitude -he would often have to face when he returned to civilized life and tried -to tell his Message to the thinking, educated men of today--the men he -must win over somehow to his dream--the men, without whose backing, no -Movement could hope to meet with even a measure of success. - -"So, like myself," said Stahl, as he carefully tended the flame of the -spirit-lamp between them, "you have escaped by the skin of your teeth, -as it were. And I congratulate you--heartily." - -"I thank you," said the other dryly. - -"You write your version now, and I'll write mine--indeed it is already -almost finished--then we'll compare notes. Perhaps we might even -publish them together." - -He poured out the fragrant coffee. They faced each other across the -little table. But O'Malley did not take the bait. He wished to hear the -balance his companion still might tell. - -And presently he asked for it. - -"With the discharge of your patient the trouble ceased at once, then?" - -"Comparatively soon. It gradually subsided, yes." - -"And as regards yourself?" - -"I came back to my senses. I recovered my control. The insubordinate -impulses I had known retired." He smiled as he sipped his coffee. "You -see me now," he added, looking his companion steadily in the eyes, "a -sane and commonplace ship's doctor." - -"I congratulate you--" - -"_Vielen Dank._" He bowed. - -"On what you missed, yet almost accomplished," the other finished. -"You might have known, like me, the cosmic consciousness! You might -have met the gods!" - -"In a strait-waistcoat," the doctor added with a snap. - -They laughed at one another across their coffee cups as once before -they had laughed across their glasses of Kakhetian wine--two eternally -antagonistic types that will exist as long as life itself. - -But, contrary to his expectations, the German had little more to tell. -He mentioned how the experience had led his mind into strange and -novel reading in his desire to know what other minds might have to -offer by way of explanation, even the most fanciful and far-fetched. He -told, though very briefly, how he had picked up Fechner among others, -and carefully studied his "poetic theories," and read besides the best -accounts of "spiritistic" phenomena, as also of the rarer states of -hysteria, double-consciousness, multiple personality, and even those -looser theories which suggest that a portion of the human constitution -called "astral" or "etheric" may escape from the parent center and, -carrying with it the subtler forces of desire and yearning, construct a -vivid subjective state of mind which is practically its Heaven of hope -and longing all fulfilled. - -He did not, however, betray the results upon himself of all this curious -reading and study, nor mention what he found of truth or probability in -it all. He merely quoted books and authors, in at least three languages, -that stretched in a singular and catholic array from Plato and the -Neo-Platonists across the ages to Myers, Du Prel, Flournoy, Lodge, and -Morton Prince. - -Out of the lot, perhaps,--O'Malley gathered it by inference rather -than from actual statement, from fragments of their talks upon the -outward voyage more than from anything let fall just then--Fechner -had proved the most persuasive to this man's contradictory and original -mind. It certainly seemed, at least, as if he knew some secret -sympathetic leaning toward the idea that consciousness and matter were -inseparable, and that a Cosmic Consciousness "of sorts" might pertain to -the Earth as, equally, to all the other stars and planets. The _Urwelt_ -idea he so often referred to had seized a part of his imagination--that, -at least, was clear. - -The Irishman drank it all in, but he was too exhausted now to argue, -and too full besides to ask questions. His natural volubility forsook -him. He let the doctor have his say without interruptions. He took the -warnings with the rest of it. Nothing the other said had changed him. - -It was not the first sunrise they had watched together, and as they -took the morning air on deck once more, Corsica rising like a dream -the night had left behind her on the sea, he listened with fainter -interest to the German's concluding sentences. - -"At any rate you now understand why on that other voyage I was so -eager to watch you with your friend, so keen to separate you, to prevent -your sleeping with him, and at the same time so desirous to see his -influence upon you at close quarters; and also--why I always understood -so well what was going on both outwardly and within." - -O'Malley quietly reiterated the belief he still held in the power of his -own dream. - -"I shall go home and give my message to the world," was what he said -quietly. "I think it's true." - -"It's better to keep silent," was the answer, "for, even if true, the -world is not ready yet to listen. It will evaporate, you'll find, in the -telling. You'll find there's nothing to tell. Besides, a dream like yours -must dawn on all at once, and not on merely one. No one will understand -you." - -"I can but try." - -"You will reach no men of action; and few of intellect. You will merely -stuff the dreamers who are already stuffed enough. What is the use, I -ask you? What is the use?" - -"It will set the world on fire for simplicity," the other murmured, -knowing the great sweet passion flame within him as he watched the -sun come slowly out of the rosy sea. "All the use in the world." - -"None," was the laconic answer. - -"They might know the gods!" cried O'Malley, using the phrase that -symbolized for him the entire Vision. - -Stahl looked at him for some time before he spoke. Again that -expression of wistful, almost longing admiration shone in the brown -eyes. - -"My friend," he answered gravely, "men do not want to know the gods. They -prefer their delights less subtle. They crave the cruder physical -sensations that bang them toward excitement--" - -"Of disease, of pain, of separateness," put in the other. - -The German shrugged his shoulders. "It's the stage they're at," he -said. "You, if you have success, will merely make a few uncomfortable. -The majority will hardly turn their heads. To one in a million you may -bring peace and happiness." - -"It's worth it," cried the Irishman, "even for that one!" - -Stahl answered very gently, smiling with his new expression of tenderness -and sympathy. "Dream your great dream if you will, but dream it, my -friend, alone--in peace and silence. That 'one' I speak of is yourself." - -The doctor pressed his hand and turned toward his cabin. O'Malley -stood a little longer to share the sunrise. Neither spoke another word. -He heard the door shut softly behind him. The unspoken answer in his -mind was in two words--two common little adjectives: "Coward and -selfish!" - -But Stahl, once in the privacy of his cabin, judging by the glance -visible on his face ere he closed the door, may probably have known a -very different thought. And possibly he uttered it below his breath. A -sigh most certainly escaped his lips, a sigh half sadness, half relief. -For O'Malley remembered it afterwards. - -"Beautiful, foolish dreamer among men! But, thank God, harmless--to -others and--himself." - -And soon afterwards O'Malley also went to his cabin. Before sleep took -him he lay deep in a mood of sadness--almost as though he had heard his -friend's unspoken thought. He realized the insuperable difficulties -that lay before him. The world would think him "mad but harmless." - -Then, with full sleep, he slipped across that sunrise and found the -old-world Garden. He held the eternal password. - -"I can but try...!" - - - - -XLV - - -And here the crowded, muddled notebooks come to an end. The rest was -action--and inevitable disaster. - -The brief history of O'Malley's mad campaign may be imagined. To a writer -who found interest in the study of forlorn hopes and their leaders, a -detailed record of this particular one might seem worth while. For me -personally it is too sad and too pathetic. I cannot bring myself to tell, -much less to analyze the story of a broken heart, when that heart and -story are those of a close and deeply admired intimate, a man who gave me -genuine love and held my own. - -Besides, although a curious chapter in uncommon human nature, it -is not by any means a new one. It is the true story of many a poet and -dreamer since the world began, though perhaps not often told nor even -guessed. And only the poets themselves, especially the little poets who -cannot utter half the fire that consumes them, may know the searing -pain and passion and the true inwardness of it all. - -Most of those months it chanced I was away, and only fragments of -the foolish enterprise could reach me. But nothing, I think, could have -stopped him, nor any worldly selfish wisdom made him even pause. -The thing possessed him utterly; it had to flame its way out as best it -could. To high and low, he preached by every means in his power the -Simple Life; he preached the mystical life as well--that the true -knowledge and the true progress are within, that they both pertain to -the inner being and have no chief concern with external things. He -preached it wildly, lopsidedly, in or out of season, knowing no half -measures. His enthusiasm obscured his sense of proportion and the -extravagance hid the germ of truth that undeniably lay in his message. - -To put the movement on its feet at first he realized every possession -that he had. It left him penniless, if he was not almost so already, and -in the end it left him smothered beneath the glory of his blinding and -unutterable Dream. He never understood that suggestion is more effective -than a sledge-hammer. His faith was no mere little seed of mustard, -but a full-fledged forest singing its message in a wind of thunder. He -shouted it aloud to the world. - -I think the acid disappointment that lies beneath that trite old phrase -"a broken heart" was never really his; for indeed it seemed that his -cruel, ludicrous failure merely served to strengthen hope and purpose by -making him seek for a better method of imparting what he had to say. -In the end he learned the bitter lesson to the full. But faith never -trailed a single feather. Those jeering audiences in the Park; those -empty benches in many a public hall, those brief, ignoring paragraphs in -the few newspapers that filled a vacant corner by labeling him crank and -long-haired prophet; even the silence that greeted his pamphlets, his -letters to the Press, and all the rest, hurt him for others rather than -for himself. His pain was altruistic, never personal. His dream and -motive, his huge, unwieldy compassion, his genuine love for humanity, all -were big enough for that. - -And so, I think, he missed the personal mortification that disappointment -so deep might bring to dreamers with an aim less unadulteratedly -pure. His eye was single to the end. He attributed only the highest -motives to all who offered help. The very quacks and fools who flocked -to his banner, eager to exploit their smaller fads by joining them to his -own, he welcomed, only regretting that, as Stahl had warned him, he -could not attract a better class of mind. He did not even see through -the manoeuvres of the occasional women of wealth and title who sought -to conceal their own mediocrity by advertising in their drawing-rooms -the eccentricities of men like himself. And to the end he had the courage -of his glorious convictions. - -The change of method that he learned at last, moreover, was -characteristic of this faith and courage. - -"I've begun at the wrong end," he said; "I shall never reach men through -their intellects. Their brains today are occupied by the machine-made -gods of civilization. I cannot change the direction of their thoughts and -lusts from outside; the momentum is too great to stop that way. I must -get at them from within. To reach their hearts, the new ideas must rise -up _from within_. I see the truer way. I must do it _from the other -side_. It must come to them--in Beauty." - -For he was to the last convinced that death would merge him in the -being of the Earth's Collective Consciousness, and that, lost in her deep -eternal beauty, he thus might reach the hearts of men in some stray -glimpse of nature's loveliness, and register his flaming message. He -loved to quote from Adonais: - -"He is made one with Nature: there is heard -His voice in all her music, from the moan -Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; -He is a presence to be felt and known -In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, -Spreading itself where'er that Power may move -Which has withdrawn his being to its own. -He is a portion of the loveliness -Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear -His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress -Sweeps through the dull dense world..." - -And this thought, phrased in a dozen different ways, was always on his -lips. To dream was right and useful, even to dream alone, because the -beauty of the dream must add to the beauty of the Whole of which it is a -part and an interpretation. It was not really lost or vain. All must come -back in time to feed the world. He had known gracious thoughts of Earth -too big to utter, almost too big to hold. Such thoughts could not ever be -really told; they were incommunicable. For the mystical revelation is -incommunicable. It has authority only for him who feels it. A corporate -revelation is impossible. Only those among men could know, in whose -hearts it rose intuitively and made its presence felt as innate ideas. -Inspiration brings it, and beauty is the vehicle. Their hearts must -change before their minds could be reached. - -"I can work it better from the other side--from that old, old Garden -which is the Mother's heart. In this way I can help at any rate...!" - - - - -XLVI - - -It was at the close of a wet and foggy autumn that we met again, winter -in the air, all London desolate; and his wasted, forlorn appearance told -me the truth at once. Only the passionate eagerness of voice and manner -were there to prove that the spirit had not weakened. There glowed within -a fire that showed itself in the translucent shining of the eyes and -face. - -"I've made one great discovery, old man," he exclaimed with old, -familiar, high enthusiasm, "one great discovery at least." - -"You've made so many," I answered cheerfully, while my real thoughts were -busy with his bodily state of health. For his appearance shocked me. He -stood among a litter of papers, books, neckties, nailed boots, knapsacks, -maps and what-not, that rolled upon the floor from the mouth of the -Willesden canvas sack. His old grey flannel suit hung literally upon a -bag of bones; all the life there was seemed concentrated in his face and -eyes--those far-seeing, light blue eyes. They were darker than usual now, -eyes like the sea, I thought. His hair, long and disordered, -tumbled over his forehead. He was pale, and at the same time flushed. It -was almost a disembodied spirit that I saw. - -"You've made so many. I love to hear them. Is this one finer than the -others?" - -He looked a moment at me through and through, almost uncannily. He looked -in reality beyond me. It was something else he saw, and in the dusk I -turned involuntarily. - -"Simpler," he said quickly, "much simpler." - -He moved up close beside me, whispering. Was it all imagination that a -breath of flowers came with him? There was certainly a curious fragrance -in the air, wild and sweet like orchards in the spring. - -"And it is--?" - -"That the Garden's _everywhere!_ You needn't go to the distant Caucasus -to find it. It's all about this old London town, and in these foggy -streets and dingy pavements. It's even in this cramped, undusted room. -Now at this moment, while that lamp flickers and the thousands go to -sleep. The gates of horn and ivory are here," he tapped his breast. "And -here the flowers, the long, clean open hills, the giant herd, the nymphs, -the sunshine and the gods!" - -So attached was he now to that little room in Paddington where his books -and papers lay, that when the curious illness that had caught him grew so -much worse, and the attacks of the nameless fever that afflicted him -turned serious, I hired a bedroom for him in the same house. And it was -in that poky, cage-like den he breathed his last. - -His illness I called curious, his fever nameless, because they really -were so and puzzled every one. He simply faded out of life, it seemed; -there was no pain, no sleeplessness, no suffering of any physical kind. -He uttered no complaint, nor were there symptoms of any known -disorder. - -"Your friend is sound organically," the doctor told me when I pressed him -for the truth there on the stairs, "sound as a bell. He wants the open -air and plenty of wholesome food, that's all. His body is ill-nourished. -His trouble is mental--some deep and heavy disappointment doubtless. If -you can change the current of his thoughts, awaken interest in common -things, and give him change of scene, perhaps--" He shrugged his -shoulders and looked very grave. - -"You think he's dying?" - -"I think, yes, he is dying." - -"From--?" - -"From lack of living pure and simple," was the answer. "He has lost -all hold on life." - -"He has abundant vitality still." - -"Full of it. But it all goes--elsewhere. The physical organism gets -none of it." - -"Yet mentally," I asked, "there's nothing actually wrong?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense. The mind is clear and active. So far as I -can test it, the process of thought is healthy and undamaged. It seems -to me--" - -He hesitated a moment on the doorstep while the driver wound the -motor handle. I waited with a sinking heart for the rest of the sentence. - -"...like certain cases of nostalgia I have known--very rare and very -difficult to deal with. Acute and vehement nostalgia, yes, sometimes -called a broken heart," he added, pausing another instant at the carriage -door, "in which the entire stream of a man's inner life flows to some -distant place, or person, or--or to some imagined yearning that he -craves to satisfy." - -"To a dream?" - -"It _might_ be even that," he answered slowly, stepping in. "It might be -spiritual. The religious and poetic temperament are most open to it, -_and_ the most difficult to deal with when afflicted." He emphasized the -little word as though the doubt he felt was far less strong than the -conviction he only half concealed. "If you would save him, try to change -the direction of his thoughts. There is nothing--in all honesty I must -say it--nothing that I can do to help." - -And then, pulling at the grey tuft on his chin and looking keenly at me a -moment over his glasses,--"Those flowers," he said hesitatingly, "you -might move those flowers from the room, perhaps. Their perfume is a -trifle strong ... It might be better." Again he looked sharply at me. -There was an odd expression in his eyes. And in my heart there was an -odd sensation too, so odd that I found myself bereft a moment of any -speech at all, and when my tongue became untied, the carriage was -already disappearing down the street. For in that dingy sick-room there -were no flowers at all, yet the perfume of woods and fields and open -spaces had reached the doctor too, and obviously perplexed him. - -"Change the direction of his thoughts!" I went indoors, wondering -how any honest and even half-unselfish friend, knowing what I knew, -could follow such advice. With what but the lowest motive, of keeping -him alive for my own happiness, could I seek to change his thoughts -of some imagined joy and peace to the pain and sordid facts of an -earthly existence that he loathed? - -But when I turned I saw the tousled yellow-headed landlady standing -in the breach. Mrs. Heath stopped me in the hall to inquire whether I -could say "anythink abart the rent per'aps?" Her manner was defiant. I -found three months were owing. - -"It's no good arsking 'im," she said, though not unkindly on the -whole. "I'm sick an' tired of always being put off. He talks about the -gawds and a Mr. Pan, or some such gentleman who he says will look -after it all. But I never sees 'im--not this Mr. Pan. And his stuff up -there," jerking her head toward the little room, "ain't worth a -Sankey-moody 'ymn-book, take the lot of it at cost!" - -I reassured her. It was impossible to help smiling. For some minds, -I reflected, a Sankey hymn-book might hold dreams that were every bit -as potent as his own, and far less troublesome. But that "Mr. Pan, or -some such gentleman" should serve as a "reference" between lodger and -landlady was an unwitting comment on the modern point of view that -made me want to cry rather than to laugh. O'Malley and Mrs. Heath -between them had made a profounder criticism than they knew. - - * * * * * - -And so by slow degrees he went, leaving the outer fury for the inner -peace. The center of consciousness gradually shifted from the transient -form which is the true ghost, to the deeper, permanent state which is -the eternal reality. For this was how he phrased it to me in one of our -last, strange talks. He watched his own withdrawal. - -In bed he would lie for hours with fixed and happy eyes, staring -apparently at nothing, the expression on his face quite radiant. The -pulse sank often dangerously low; he scarcely seemed to breathe; yet it -was never complete unconsciousness or trance. My voice, when I found the -heart to try and coax his own for speech, would win him back. The eyes -would then grow dimmer, losing their happier light, as he turned to the -outer world to look at me. - -"The pull is so tremendous now," he whispered; "I was far, so far -away, in the deep life of Earth. Why do you bring me back to all these -little pains? I can do nothing here; _there_ I am of use..." - -He spoke so low I had to bend my head to catch the words. It was -very late at night and for hours I had been watching by his side. Outside -an ugly yellow fog oppressed the town, but about him like an atmosphere -I caught again that fragrance as of trees and flowers. It was too -faint for any name--that fugitive, mild perfume one meets upon bare -hills and round the skirts of forests. It was somehow, I fancied, in the -very breath. - -"Each time the effort to return is greater. In there I am complete and -full of power. I can work and send my message back so splendidly. Here," -he glanced down at his wasted body with a curious smile, "I am only -on the fringe--it's pain and failure. All so ineffective." - -That other look came back into the eyes, more swiftly than before. - -"I thought you might like to speak, to tell me--something," I said, -keeping the tears with difficulty from my voice. "Is there no one you -would like to see?" - -He shook his head slowly, and gave the peculiar answer: - -"They're all in there." - -"But Stahl, perhaps--if I could get him here?" - -An expression of gentle disapproval crossed his face, then melted -softly into a wistful tenderness as of a child. - -"He's not there--yet," he whispered, "but he will come too in the -end. In sleep, I think, he goes there even now." - -"Where are you _really_ then?" I ventured, "And where is it you go to?" - -The answer came unhesitatingly; there was no doubt or searching. - -"Into myself, my real and deeper self, and so beyond it into her--the -Earth. Where all the others are--all, all, all." - -And then he frightened me by sitting up in bed abruptly. His eyes -stared past me--out beyond the close confining walls. The movement -was so startling with its suddenness and vigor that I shrank back a -moment. The head was sideways. He was intently listening. - -"Hark!" he whispered. "They are calling me! Do you hear...?" - -The look of joy that broke over the face like sunshine made me hold -my breath. Something in his low voice thrilled me beyond all I have -ever known. I listened too. Only the rumble of the traffic down the -distant main street broke the silence, the rattle of a nearer cart, and -the footsteps of a few pedestrians. No other noises came across the -night. There was no wind. Thick yellow fog muffled everything. - -"I hear nothing," I answered softly. "What is it that _you_ hear?" - -And, making no reply, he presently lay down again among the pillows, that -look of joy and glory still upon his face. It lay there to the end like -sunrise. - -The fog came in so thickly through the window that I rose to close -it. He never closed that window, and I hoped he would not notice. For -a sound of wretched street-music was coming nearer--some beggar playing -dismally upon a penny whistle--and I feared it would disturb him. But in -a flash he was up again. - -"No, no!" he cried, raising his voice for the first time that night. "Do -not shut it. I shan't be able to hear then. Let all the air come in. Open -it wider... wider! I love that sound!" - -"The fog--" - -"There is no fog. It's only sun and flowers and music. Let them in. -Don't you hear it now?" he added. And, more to bring him peace than -anything else, I bowed my head to signify agreement. For the last -confusion of the mind, I saw, was upon him, and he made the outer -world confirm some imagined detail of his inner dream. I drew the sash -down lower, covering his body closely with the blankets. He flung them -off impatiently at once. The damp and freezing night rushed in upon -us like a presence. It made me shudder, but O'Malley only raised himself -upon one elbow to taste it better, and--to listen. - -Then, waiting patiently for the return of the quiet, trance-like state -when I might cover him again, I moved toward the window and looked -out. The street was empty, save for that beggar playing vilely on his -penny whistle. The wretch came to a standstill immediately before the -house. The lamplight fell from the room upon his tattered, broken -figure. I could not see his face. He groped and felt his way. - -Outside that homeless wanderer played his penny pipe in the night -of cold and darkness. - -Inside the Dreamer listened, dreaming of his gods and garden, his -great Earth Mother, his visioned life of peace and simple things with a -living Nature... - -And I felt somehow that player watched us. I made an angry sign to -him to go. But it was the sudden touch upon my arm that made me -turn round with such a sudden start that I almost cried aloud. O'Malley -in his night-clothes stood close against me on the floor, slight as a -spirit, eyes a-shine, lips moving faintly into speech through the most -wonderful smile a human face has ever shown me. - -"Do not send him away," he whispered, joy breaking from him like -a light, "but tell him that I love it. Go out and thank him. Tell him I -hear and understand, and say that I am coming. Will you...?" - -Something within me whirled. It seemed that I was lifted from my -feet a moment. Some tide of power rushed from his person to my own. -The room was filled with blinding light. But in my heart there rose a -great emotion that combined tears and joy and laughter all at once. - -"The moment you are back in bed," I heard my voice like one speaking from -a distance, "I'll go--" - -The momentary, wild confusion passed as suddenly as it came. I -remember he obeyed at once. As I bent down to tuck the clothes about -him, that fragrance as of flowers and open spaces rose about my bending -face like incense--bewilderingly sweet. - -And the next second I was standing in the street. The man who played -upon the pipe, I saw, was blind. His hand and fingers were curiously -large. - -I was already close, ready to press all that my pockets held into his -hand--ay, and far more than merely pockets held because O'Malley -said he loved the music--when something made me turn my head away. -I cannot say precisely what it was, for first it seemed a tapping at the -window of his room behind me, and then a little noise within the room -itself, and next--more curious than either,--a feeling that something -came out rushing past me through the air. It whirled and shouted as it -went... - -I only remember clearly that in the very act of turning, and while my -look still held that beggar's face within the field of vision, I saw the -sightless eyes turn bright a moment as though he opened them and saw. -He did most certainly smile; to that I swear. - -But when I turned again the street immediately about me was empty. -The beggar-man was gone. - -And down the pavement, moving swiftly through the curtain of fog, -I saw his vanishing figure. It was large and spreading. In the fringe of -light the lamp-post gave, its upper edges seemed far above the ground. -Someone else was with him. There were two figures. - -I heard that sound of piping far away. It sounded faint and almost -flute-like in the air. And in the mud at my feet the money lay--spurned -utterly. I heard the last coins ring upon the pavement as they settled. -But in the room, when I got back, the body of Terence O'Malley had -ceased to breathe. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Centaur, by Algernon Blackwood - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - -This file should be named 8cntr10.txt or 8cntr10.zip -Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8cntr11.txt -VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8cntr10a.txt - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - -Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US -unless a copyright notice is included. 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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 Centaur - -Author: Algernon Blackwood - -Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9964] -Release Date: February, 2006 -First Posted: November 4, 2003 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team - - - - - - - - - - - - THE CENTAUR - - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - - 1911 - - - - -I - -"We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing -the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the -meaning of it all." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - -"... A man's vision is the great fact about him. Who cares for Carlyle's -reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's? A philosophy is the expression -of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the Universe are -but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters upon it." - ---Ibid - - -"There are certain persons who, independently of sex or comeliness, -arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The tribe is small, -but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither fortune, good -looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the stupid name good -luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality which proclaims that -they have overtaken Fate, set a harness about its neck of violence, and -hold bit and bridle in steady hands. - -"Most of us, arrested a moment by their presence to snatch the definition -their peculiarity exacts, are aware that on the heels of curiosity -follows--envy. They know the very things that we forever seek in vain. -And this diagnosis, achieved as it were _en passant_, comes near to the -truth, for the hallmark of such persons is that they have found, and -come into, their own. There is a sign upon the face and in the eyes. -Having somehow discovered the 'piece' that makes them free of the whole -amazing puzzle, they know where they belong and, therefore, whither they -are bound: more, they are definitely _en route_. The littlenesses of -existence that plague the majority pass them by. - -"For this reason, if for no other," continued O'Malley, "I count my -experience with that man as memorable beyond ordinary. 'If for no other,' -because from the very beginning there was another. Indeed, it was -probably his air of unusual bigness, massiveness rather,--head, face, -eyes, shoulders, especially back and shoulders,--that struck me first -when I caught sight of him lounging there hugely upon my steamer deck at -Marseilles, winning my instant attention before he turned and the -expression on his great face woke more--woke curiosity, interest, envy. -He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge of mild -surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less than -perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child--almost of an -animal--shone in the large brown eyes--" - -"You mean that the physical quality caught you first, then the -psychical?" I asked, keeping him to the point, for his Irish imagination -was ever apt to race away at a tangent. - -He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. "I believe that to be -the truth," he replied, his face instantly grave again. "It was the -impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition--blessed if I know -how--leading me to the other. The size of his body did not smother, as so -often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed. At the moment I -could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only this overwhelming -attraction of the man's personality caught me and I longed to make -friends. That's the way with me, as you know," he added, tossing the hair -back from his forehead impatiently,"--pretty often. First impressions. -Old man, I tell you, it was like a possession." - -"I believe you," I said. For Terence O'Malley all his life had never -understood half measures. - - - - -II - -"The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for -civilization, or is he past it, and mastering it?" - ---WHITMAN - -"We find ourselves today in the midst of a somewhat peculiar state of -society, which we call Civilization, but which even to the most -optimistic among us does not seem altogether desirable. Some of us, -indeed, are inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which the -various races of man have to pass through.... - -"While History tells us of many nations that have been attacked by it, of -many that have succumbed to it, and of some that are still in the throes -of it, we know of no single case in which a nation has fairly recovered -from and passed through it to a more normal and healthy condition. In -other words, the development of human society has never yet (that we know -of) passed beyond a certain definite and apparently final stage in the -process we call Civilization; at that stage it has always succumbed or -been arrested." - ---EDWARD CARPENTER, _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_ - - -O'Malley himself is an individuality that invites consideration from the -ruck of commonplace men. Of mingled Irish, Scotch, and English blood, the -first predominated, and the Celtic element in him was strong. A man of -vigorous health, careless of gain, a wanderer, and by his own choice -something of an outcast, he led to the end the existence of a rolling -stone. He lived from hand to mouth, never quite growing up. It seemed, -indeed, that he never could grow up in the accepted sense of the term, -for his motto was the reverse of _nil admirari_, and he found himself in -a state of perpetual astonishment at the mystery of things. He was -forever deciphering the huge horoscope of Life, yet getting no further -than the House of Wonder, on whose cusp surely he had been born. -Civilization, he loved to say, had blinded the eyes of men, filling them -with dust instead of vision. - -An ardent lover of wild outdoor life, he knew at times a high, passionate -searching for things of the spirit, when the outer world fell away like -dross and he seemed to pass into a state resembling ecstasy. Never in -cities or among his fellow men, struggling and herded, did these times -come to him, but when he was abroad with the winds and stars in desolate -places. Then, sometimes, he would be rapt away, caught up to see the -tail-end of the great procession of the gods that had come near. He -surprised Eternity in a running Moment. - -For the moods of Nature flamed through him--_in_ him--like presences, -potently evocative as the presences of persons, and with meanings equally -various: the woods with love and tenderness; the sea with reverence and -magic; plains and wide horizons with the melancholy peace and silence as -of wise and old companions; and mountains with a splendid terror due to -some want of comprehension in himself, caused probably by a spiritual -remoteness from their mood. - -The Cosmos, in a word, for him was psychical, and Nature's moods were -transcendental cosmic activities that induced in him these singular -states of exaltation and expansion. She pushed wide the gateways of his -deeper life. She entered, took possession, dipped his smaller self into -her own enormous and enveloping personality. - -He possessed a full experience, and at times a keen judgment, of modern -life; while underneath, all the time, lay the moving sea of curiously -wild primitive instincts. An insatiable longing for the wilderness was in -his blood, a craving vehement, unappeasable. Yet for something far -greater than the wilderness alone--the wilderness was merely a symbol, a -first step, indication of a way of escape. The hurry and invention of -modern life were to him a fever and a torment. He loathed the million -tricks of civilization. At the same time, being a man of some -discrimination at least, he rarely let himself go completely. Of these -wilder, simpler instincts he was afraid. They might flood all else. If he -yielded entirely, something he dreaded, without being able to define, -would happen; the structure of his being would suffer a nameless -violence, so that he would have to break with the world. These cravings -stood for that loot of the soul which he must deny himself. Complete -surrender would involve somehow a disintegration, a dissociation of -his personality that carried with it the loss of personal identity. - -When the feeling of revolt became sometimes so urgent in him that it -threatened to become unmanageable, he would go out into solitude, calling -it to heel; but this attempt to restore order, while easing his nature, -was never radical; the accumulation merely increased on the rebound; the -yearnings grew and multiplied, and the point of saturation was often -dangerously near. "Some day," his friends would say, "there'll be a -bursting of the dam." And, though their meaning might be variously -interpreted, they spoke the truth. O'Malley knew it, too. - -A man he was, in a word, of deep and ever-shifting moods, and with more -difficulty than most in recognizing the underlying self of which these -outer aspects were projections masquerading as complete personalities. - -The underlying ego that unified these projections was of the type -touched with so sure a hand in the opening pages of an inspired little -book: _The Plea of Pan_. O'Malley was useless as a citizen and knew it. -Sometimes--he was ashamed of it as well. - -Occasionally, and at the time of this particular "memorable adventure," -aged thirty, he acted as foreign correspondent; but even as such he was -the kind of newspaper man that not merely collects news, but discovers, -reveals, creates it. Wise in their generation, the editors who -commissioned him remembered when his copy came in that they were editors. -A roving commission among the tribes of the Caucasus was his assignment -at the moment, and a better man for the purpose would have been hard to -find, since he knew beauty, had a keen eye for human nature, divined what -was vital and picturesque, and had, further, the power to set it down in -brief terms born directly of his vivid emotions. - -When first I knew him he lived--nowhere, being always on the move. He -kept, however, a dingy little room near Paddington where his books and -papers accumulated, undusted but safe, and where the manuscripts of his -adventures were found when his death made me the executor of his few -belongings. The key was in his pocket, carefully ticketed with a bone -label. And this, the only evidence of practical forethought I ever -discovered in him, was proof that something in that room was deemed by -him of value--to others. It certainly was not the heterogeneous -collection of second-hand books, nor the hundreds of unlabeled -photographs and sketches. Can it have been the MSS. of stories, notes, -and episodes I found, almost carefully piled and tabulated with titles, -in a dirty kitbag of green Willesden canvas? - -Some of these he had told me (with a greater vividness than he could -command by pen); others were new; many unfinished. All were unusual, -to say the least. All, too, had obviously happened to himself at some -period of his roving career, though here and there he had disguised his -own part in them by Hoffmann's device of throwing the action into the -third person. Those told to me by word of mouth I could only feel were -true, true for himself at least. In no sense were they mere inventions, -but arose in moments of vision upon a structure of solid events. Ten -men will describe in as many different ways a snake crossing their path; -but, besides these, there exists an eleventh man who sees more than the -snake, the path, the movement. O'Malley was some such eleventh man. He -saw the thing whole, from some kind of inner bird's-eye view, while the -ten saw only limited aspects of it from various angles. He was accused -of adding details, therefore, because he had divined their presence while -still below the horizon. Before they emerged the others had already left. - -By which I mean that he saw in commonplace events the movement of greater -tides than others saw. At one remove of time or distance--a minute or a -mile--he perceived _all_. While the ten chattered volubly about the name -of the snake, he was caught beyond by the beauty of the path, the glory -of the running glide, the nature of the forces that drove, hindered, -modified. - -The others reasoned where the snake was going, its length in inches and -its speed per second, while he, ignoring such superficial details, -plunged as it were into the very nature of the creature's being. And in -this idiosyncrasy, which he shared with all persons of mystical -temperament, is exemplified a certain curious contempt for Reason that he -had. For him mere intellectuality, by which the modern world sets such -store, was a valley of dry bones. Its worship was a worship of the form. -It missed the essential inner truth because such inner truth could be -known only by being it, feeling it. The intellectual attitude of mind, in -a word, was critical, not creative, and to be unimaginative seemed to -him, therefore, the worst form of unintelligence. - -"The arid, sterile minds!" he would cry in a burst of his Celtic -enthusiasm. "Where, I ask ye, did the philosophies and sciences of the -world assist the progress of any single soul a blessed inch?" - -Any little Dreamer in his top-floor back, spinning by rushlight his -web of beauty, was greater than the finest critical intelligence that -ever lived. The one, for all his poor technique, was stammering over -something God had whispered to him, the other merely destroying thoughts -invented by the brain of man. - -And this attitude of mind, because of its interpretative effect upon -what follows, justifies mention. For to O'Malley, in some way difficult -to explain, Reason and Intellect, as such, had come to be worshipped -by men today out of all proportion to their real value. Consciousness, -focused too exclusively upon them, had exalted them out of due proportion -in the spiritual economy. To make a god of them was to make an empty and -inadequate god. Reason should be the guardian of the soul's advance, but -not the object. Its function was that of a great sandpaper which should -clear the way of excrescences, but its worship was to allow a detail to -assume a disproportionate importance. - -Not that he was fool enough to despise Reason in what he called its -proper place, but that he was "wise" enough--not that he was -"intellectual" enough!--to recognize its futility in measuring the things -of the soul. For him there existed a more fundamental understanding than -Reason, and it was, apparently, an inner and natural understanding. - -"The greatest Teacher we ever had," I once heard him say, "ignored the -intellect, and who, will ye tell me, can by searching find out God? And -yet what else is worth finding out...? Isn't it only by becoming as a -little child--a child that feels and never reasons things--that any -one shall enter the kingdom...? Where will the giant intellects be before -the Great White Throne when a simple man with the heart of a child will -top the lot of 'em?" - -"Nature, I'm convinced," he said another time, though he said it with -puzzled eyes and a mind obviously groping, "is our next step. Reason -has done its best for centuries, and gets no further. It _can_ get no -further, for it can do nothing for the inner life which is the sole -reality. We must return to Nature and a purified intuition, to a greater -reliance upon what is now subconscious, back to that sweet, grave -guidance of the Universe which we've discarded with the primitive -state--a spiritual intelligence, really, divorced from mere -intellectuality." - -And by Nature he did not mean a return to savagery. There was no idea -of going backwards in his wild words. Rather he looked forwards, in some -way hard to understand, to a state when Man, with the best results of -Reason in his pocket, might return to the instinctive life--to feeling -_with_--to the sinking down of the modern, exaggerated intellectual -personality into its rightful place as guide instead of leader. He called -it a Return to Nature, but what he meant, I always felt, was back to a -sense of kinship with the Universe which men, through worshipping the -intellect alone, had lost. Men today prided themselves upon their -superiority to Nature as beings separate and apart. O'Malley sought, on -the contrary, a development, if not a revival, of some faultless -instinct, due to kinship with her, which--to take extremes--shall direct -alike the animal and the inspired man, guiding the wild bee and the -homing pigeon, and--the soul toward its God. - -This clue, as he called it, crystallized so neatly and so conclusively -his own mental struggles, that he had called a halt, as it were, to his -own intellectual development.... The name and family of the snake, hence, -meant to him the least important things about it. He caught, wildly yet -consistently, at the psychic links that bound the snake and Nature and -himself together with all creation. Troops of adventurous thoughts had -all his life "gone west" to colonize this land of speculative dream. True -to his idea, he "thought" with his emotions as much as with his brain, -and in the broken record of the adventure that this book relates, this -strange passion of his temperament remains the vital clue. For it -happened _in_, as well as to, himself. His Being could include the Earth -by feeling with her, whereas his intellect could merely criticize, and so -belittle, the details of such inclusion. - -Many a time, while he stretched credulity to a point, I have heard him -apologize in some such way for his method. It was the splendor of his -belief that made the thing so convincing in the telling, for later when -I found the same tale written down it seemed somehow to have failed -of an equal achievement. The truth was that no one language would -convey the extraordinary freight that was carried so easily by his -instinctive choice of gestures, tone, and glance. With him these were -consummately interpretative. - - * * * * * - -Before the age of thirty he had written and published a volume or two of -curious tales, all dealing with extensions of the personality, a subject -that interested him deeply, and one he understood because he drew the -material largely from himself. Psychology he simply devoured, even in its -most fantastic and speculative forms; and though perhaps his vision was -incalculably greater than his power of technique, these strange books had -a certain value and formed a genuine contribution to the thought on that -particular subject. In England naturally they fell dead, but their -translation into German brought him a wider and more intelligent circle. -The common public unfamiliar with Sally Beauchamp No. 4, with Hélène -Smith, or with Dr. Hanna, found in these studies of divided personality, -and these singular extensions of the human consciousness, only -extravagance and imagination run to wildness. Yet, none the less, the -substratum of truth upon which O'Malley had built them, lay actually -within his own personal experience. The books had brought him here and -there acquaintances of value; and among these latter was a German doctor, -Heinrich Stahl. With Dr. Stahl the Irishman crossed swords through months -of somewhat irregular correspondence, until at length the two had met on -board a steamer where the German held the position of ship's doctor. The -acquaintanceship had grown into something approaching friendship, -although the two men stood apparently at the opposite poles of thought. -From time to time they still met. - -In appearance there was nothing unusual about O'Malley, unless it was the -contrast of the light blue eyes with the dark hair. Never, I think, did I -see him in anything but that old grey flannel suit, with the low collar -and shabby glistening tie. He was of medium height, delicately built, his -hands more like a girl's than a man's. In towns he shaved and looked -fairly presentable, but once upon his travels he grew beard and moustache -and would forget for weeks to have his hair cut, so that it fell in a -tangle over forehead and eyes. - -His manner changed with the abruptness of his moods. Sometimes active and -alert, at others for days together he would become absent, dreamy, -absorbed, half oblivious of the outer world, his movements and actions -dictated by subconscious instinct rather than regulated by volition. -And one cause of that loneliness of spirit which was undoubtedly a chief -pain in life to him, was the fact that ordinary folk were puzzled how to -take him, or to know which of these many extreme moods was the man -himself. Uncomfortable, unsatisfactory, elusive, not to be counted upon, -they deemed him: and from their point of view they were undoubtedly -right. The sympathy and above all the companionship he needed, genuinely -craved too, were thus denied to him by the faults of his own temperament. -With women his intercourse was of the slightest; in a sense he did not -know the need of them much. For one thing, the feminine element in his -own nature was too strong, and he was not conscious, as most men are, of -the great gap of incompleteness women may so exquisitely fill; and, for -another, its obvious corollary perhaps, when they did come into his life, -they gave him more than he could comfortably deal with. They offered him -more than he needed. - -In this way, while he perhaps had never fallen in love, as the saying has -it, he had certainly known that high splendor of devotion which means the -losing of oneself in others, that exalted love which seeks not any reward -of possession because it is itself so utterly possessed. He was pure, -too; in the sense that it never occurred to him to be otherwise. - -Chief cause of his loneliness--so far as I could judge his complex -personality at all--seemed that he never found a sympathetic, truly -understanding ear for those deeply primitive longings that fairly ravaged -his heart. And this very isolation made him often afraid; it proved that -the rest of the world, the sane majority at any rate, said No to them. I, -who loved him and listened, yet never quite apprehended his full meaning. -Far more than the common Call of the Wild, it was. He yearned, not so -much for a world savage, uncivilized, as for a perfectly natural one that -had never known, perhaps never needed civilization--a state of freedom in -a life unstained. - -He never wholly understood, I think, the reason why he found himself in -such stern protest against the modern state of things, why people -produced in him a state of death so that he turned from men to Nature--to -find life. The things the nations exclusively troubled themselves about -all seemed to him so obviously vain and worthless, and, though he never -even in his highest moments felt the claims of sainthood, it puzzled and -perplexed him deeply that the conquest over Nature in all its -multifarious forms today should seem to them so infinitely more important -than the conquest over self. What the world with common consent called -Reality, seemed ever to him the most crude and obvious, the most -transient, the most blatant un-Reality. His love of Nature was more than -the mere joy of tumultuous pagan instincts. It was, in the kind of simple -life he craved, the first step toward the recovery of noble, dignified, -enfranchised living. In the denial of all this external flummery he -hated, it would leave the soul disengaged and free, able to turn her -activities within for spiritual development. Civilization now suffocated, -smothered, killed the soul. Being in the hopeless minority, he felt he -must be somewhere wrong, at fault, deceived. For all men, from a -statesman to an engine-driver, agreed that the accumulation of external -possessions had value, and that the importance of material gain was -real.... Yet, for himself, he always turned for comfort to the Earth. -The wise and wonderful Earth opened her mind and her deep heart to him -in a way few other men seemed to know. Through Nature he could move -blind-folded along, yet find his way to strength and sympathy. A noble, -gracious life stirred in him then which the pettier human world denied. -He often would compare the thin help or fellowship he gained from -ordinary social intercourse, or from what had seemed at the time quite a -successful gathering of his kind, with the power he gained from a visit -to the woods or mountains. The former, as a rule, evaporated in a single -day; the other stayed, with ever growing power, to bless whole weeks and -months. - -And hence it was, whether owing to the truth or ignorance of his -attitude, that a sense of bleak loneliness spread through all his life, -and more and more he turned from men to Nature. - -Moreover, foolish as it must sound, I was sometimes aware that deep down -in him hid some nameless, indefinable quality that proclaimed him fitted -to live in conditions that had never known the restraints of modern -conventions--a very different thing to doing without them once known. A -kind of childlike, transcendental innocence he certainly possessed, -_naïf_, most engaging, and--utterly impossible. It showed itself -indirectly, I think, in this distress under modern conditions. The -multifarious apparatus of the spirit of Today oppressed him; its rush and -luxury and artificiality harassed him beyond belief. The terror of cities -ran in his very blood. - -When I describe him as something of an outcast, therefore, it will be -seen that he was such both voluntarily and involuntarily. - -"What the world has gained by brains is simply nothing to what it has -lost by them--" - -"A dream, my dear fellow, a mere dream," I stopped him, yet with -sympathy because I knew he found relief this way. "Your constructive -imagination is too active." - -"By Gad," he replied warmly, "but there is a place somewhere, or a state -of mind--the same thing--where it's more than a dream. And, what's more, -bless your stodgy old heart, some day I'll get there." - -"Not in England, at any rate," I suggested. - -He stared at me a moment, his eyes suddenly charged with dreams. Then, -characteristically, he snorted. He flung his hand out with a gesture that -should push the present further from him. - -"I've always liked the Eastern theory--old theory anyhow if not -Eastern--that intense yearnings end by creating a place where they are -fulfilled--" - -"Subjectively--" - -"Of course; objectively means incompletely. I mean a Heaven built up by -desire and intense longing all your life. Your own thought makes it. -Living idea, that!" - -"Another dream, Terence O'Malley," I laughed, "but beautiful and -seductive." - -To argue bored him. He loved to state his matter, fill it with detail, -blow the heated breath of life into it, and then leave it. Argument -belittled without clarifying; criticism destroyed, sealing up the sources -of life. Any fool could argue; the small, denying minds were always -critics. - -"A dream, but a damned foine one, let me tell you," he exclaimed, -recovering his brogue in his enthusiasm. He glared at me a second, then -burst out laughing. "Tis better to have dhreamed and waked," he added, -"than never to have dhreamed at all." - -And then he poured out O'Shaughnessy's passionate ode to the Dreamers of -the world: - -We are the music-makers, -And we are the dreamers of dreams, -Wandering by lone sea-breakers, -And sitting by desolate streams; -World-losers and world-forsakers, -On whom the pale moon gleams; -Yet we are the movers and shakers -Of the world forever, it seems. - -With wonderful deathless ditties -We build up the world's great cities, -And out of a fabulous story -We fashion an empire's glory; -One man with a dream, at pleasure, -Shall go forth and conquer a crown; -And three with a new song's measure -Can trample an empire down. - -We, in the ages lying -In the buried past of the earth, -Built Nineveh with our sighing, -And Babel itself with our mirth; -And o'erthrew them with prophesying -To the old of the new world's worth; -For each age is a dream that is dying, -Or one that is coming to birth. - -For this passion for some simple old-world innocence and beauty lay in -his soul like a lust--self-feeding and voracious. - - - - -III - -"Lonely! Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?" - ---THOREAU - - -March had passed shouting away, and April was whispering deliciously -among her scented showers when O'Malley went on board the coasting -steamer at Marseilles for the Levant and the Black Sea. The _mistral_ -made the land unbearable, but herds of white horses ran galloping -over the bay beneath a sky of childhood's blue. The ship started -punctually--he came on board as usual with a bare minute's margin--and -from his rapid survey of the thronged upper deck, it seems, he singled -out on the instant this man and boy, wondering first vaguely at their -uncommon air of bulk, secondly at the absence of detail which should -confirm it. They appeared so much bigger than they actually were. The -laughter, rising in his heart, however, did not get as far as his lips. - -For this appearance of massive bulk, and of shoulders comely yet almost -humped, was not borne out by a direct inspection. It was a mental -impression. The man, though broad and well-proportioned, with heavy -back and neck and uncommonly sturdy torso, was in no sense monstrous. -It was upon the corner of the eye that the bulk and hugeness dawned, a -false report that melted under direct vision. O'Malley took him in with -attention merging in respect, searching in vain for the detail of back -and limbs and neck that suggested so curiously the sense of the -gigantic. The boy beside him, obviously son, possessed the same elusive -attributes--felt yet never positively seen. - -Passing down to his cabin, wondering vaguely to what nationality they -might belong, he was immediately behind them, elbowing French and German -tourists, when the father abruptly turned and faced him. Their gaze met. -O'Malley started. - -"Whew...!" ran some silent expression like fire through his brain. - -Out of a massive visage, placid for all its ruggedness, shone eyes -large and timid as those of an animal or child bewildered among so many -people. There was an expression in them not so much cowed or dismayed as -"un-refuged"--the eyes of the hunted creature. That, at least, was the -first thing they betrayed; for the same second the quick-blooded Celt -caught another look: the look of a hunted creature that at last knows -shelter and has found it. The first expression had emerged, then -withdrawn again swiftly like an animal into its hole where safety lay. -Before disappearing, it had flashed a wireless message of warning, of -welcome, of explanation--he knew not what term to use--to another of its -own kind, to _himself_. - -O'Malley, utterly arrested, stood and stared. He would have spoken, for -the invitation seemed obvious enough, but there came an odd catch in his -breath, and words failed altogether. The boy, peering at him sideways, -clung to his great parent's side. For perhaps ten seconds there was this -interchange of staring, intimate staring, between the three of them ... -and then the Irishman, confused, more than a little agitated, ended the -silent introduction with an imperceptible bow and passed on slowly, -knocking absent-mindedly through the crowd, down to his cabin on the -lower deck. - -In his heart, deep down, stirred an indescribable sympathy with something -he divined in these two that was akin to himself, but that as yet he -could not name. On the surface he felt an emotion he knew not whether to -call uneasiness or surprise, but crowding past it, half smothering it, -rose this other more profound emotion. Something enormously winning in -the atmosphere of father and son called to him in the silence: it was -significant, oddly buried; not yet had it emerged enough to be confessed -and labeled. But each had recognized it in the other. Each knew. Each -waited. And it was extraordinarily disturbing. - -Before unpacking, he sat for a long time on his berth, thinking....trying -in vain to catch through a thunder of surprising emotions the word that -might bring explanation. That strange impression of giant bulk, -unsupported by actual measurements; that look of startled security -seeking shelter; that other look of being sure, of knowing where to go -and being actually _en route_,--all these, he felt, grew from the same -hidden cause whereof they were symptoms. It was this hidden thing in the -man that had reached out invisibly and fired his own consciousness as -their gaze met in that brief instant. And it had disturbed him so -profoundly because the very same lost thing lay buried in himself. The -man knew, whereas he anticipated merely--as yet. What was it? Why came -there with it both happiness and fear? - -The word that kept chasing itself in a circle like a kitten after its own -tail, yet bringing no explanation, was Loneliness--a loneliness that must -be whispered. For it was loneliness on the verge of finding relief. And -if proclaimed too loud, there might come those who would interfere and -prevent relief. The man, and the boy too for that matter, were escaping. -They had found the way back, were ready and eager, moreover, to show it -to other prisoners. - -And this was as near as O'Malley could come to explanation. He began to -understand dimly--and with an extraordinary excitement of happiness. - -"Well--and the bigness?" I asked, seizing on a practical point after -listening to his dreaming, "what do you make of that? It must have had -some definite cause surely?" - -He turned and fixed his light blue eyes on mine as we paced beside the -Serpentine that summer afternoon when I first heard the story told. -He was half grave, half laughing. - -"The size, the bulk, the bigness," he replied, "must have been in -reality the expression of some mental quality that reached me -psychically, producing its effect directly on my mind and not upon the -eyes at all." In telling the story he used a simile omitted in the -writing of it, because his sense of humor perceived that no possible turn -of phrase could save it from grotesqueness when actually it was far from -grotesque--extraordinarily pathetic rather: "As though," he said, "the -great back and shoulders carried beneath the loose black cape--humps, -projections at least; but projections not ugly in themselves, comely even -in some perfectly natural way, that lent to his person this idea of giant -size. His body, though large, was normal so far as its proportions were -concerned. In his spirit, though, there hid another shape. An aspect of -that other shape somehow reached my mind." - -Then, seeing that I found nothing at the moment to reply, he added: - -"As an angry man you may picture to yourself as red, or a jealous -man as green!" He laughed aloud. "D'ye see, now? It was not really a -physical business at all!" - - - - -IV - -"We think with only a small part of the past, but it is with our -entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, -will, and act." - ---HENRI BERGSON - - -The balance of his fellow-passengers were not distinguished. There was a -company of French tourists gong to Naples, and another lot of Germans -bound for Athens, some business folk for Smyrna and Constantinople, and a -sprinkling of Russians going home via Odessa, Batoum, or Novorossisk. - -In his own stateroom, occupying the upper berth, was a little -round-bodied, red-faced Canadian drummer, "traveling" in -harvest-machines. The name of the machine, its price, and the terms of -purchase were his universe; he knew them in several languages; beyond -them, nothing. He was good-natured, conceding anything to save trouble. -"D'ye mind the light for a bit while I read in bed?" asked O'Malley. -"Don't mind anything much," was the cheery reply. "I'm not particular; -I'm easy-going and you needn't bother." He turned over to sleep. "Old -traveler," he added, his voice muffled by sheets and blankets, "and take -things as they come." And the only objection O'Malley found in him was -that he took things as they came to the point of not taking baths at all, -and not even taking all his garments off when he went to bed. - -The Captain, whom he knew from previous voyages, a genial, rough-voiced -sailor from Sassnitz, chided him for so nearly missing the boat--"as -usual." - -"You're too late for a seat at my taple," he said with his laughing -growl; "it's a pidy. You should have led me know py telegram, and I then -kepd your place. Now you find room at the doctor's taple howefer -berhaps...!" - -"Steamer's very crowded this time," O'Malley replied, shrugging his -shoulders; "but you'll let me come up sometimes for a smoke with you -on the bridge?" - -"Of course, of course." - -"Anybody interesting on board?" he asked after a moment's pause. - -The jolly Captain laughed. "'Pout the zame as usual, you know. Nothing to -stop ze ship! Ask ze doctor; he knows zooner than me. But, anyway, the -nice ones, they get zeazick always and dizappear. Going Trebizond this -time?" he added. - -"No; Batoum." - -"Ach! Oil?" - -"Caucasus generally--up in the mountains a bit." - -"God blenty veapons then, I hope. They shoot you for two pfennig up -there!" And he was off with his hearty deep laugh and rather ponderous -briskness toward the bridge. - -Thus O'Malley found himself placed for meals at the right hand of -Dr. Stahl; opposite him, on the doctor's left, a talkative Moscow -fur-merchant who, having come to definite conclusions of his own about -things n general, was persuaded the rest of the world must share them, -and who delivered verbose commonplaces with a kind of pontifical -utterance sometimes amusing, but usually boring; on his right a -gentle-eyed, brown-bearded Armenian priest from the Venice monastery that -had sheltered Byron, a man who ate everything except soup with his knife, -yet with a daintiness that made one marvel, and with hands so graceful -they might almost have replaced the knife without off offence. Beyond the -priest sat the rotund Canadian drummer. He kept silence, watched the -dishes carefully lest anything should escape him, and--ate. Lower down on -the opposite side, one or two nondescripts between, sat the big, blond, -bearded stranger with his son. Diagonally across from himself and the -doctor, they were in full view. - -O'Malley talked to all and sundry whom his voice could reach, being -easily forthcoming to people whom he was not likely to see again. But -he was particularly pleased to find himself next to the ship's doctor, -Dr. Heinrich Stahl, for the man both attracted and antagonized him, and -they had crossed swords pleasantly on more voyages than one. There -was a fundamental contradiction in his character due--O'Malley -divined--to the fact that his experiences did not tally as he wished them -to do with his beliefs, or vice versa. Affecting to believe in nothing, -he occasionally dropped remarks that betrayed a belief in all kinds of -things, unorthodox things. Then, having led the Irishman into confessions -of his own fairy faith, he would abruptly rule the whole subject out of -order with some cynical phrase that closed discussion. In this sarcastic -attitude O'Malley detected a pose assumed for his own protection. "No man -of sense can possibly accept such a thing; it is incredible and foolish." -Yet, the biting way he said the words betrayed him; the very thing his -reason rejected, his soul believed.... - -These vivid impressions the Irishman had of people, one wonders how -accurate they were! In this case, perhaps, he was not far from the -truth. That a man with Dr. Stahl's knowledge and ability could be -content to hide his light under the bushel of a mere _Schiffsarzt_ -required explanation. His own explanation was that he wanted leisure for -thinking and writing. Bald-headed, slovenly, prematurely old, his beard -stained with tobacco and snuff, under-sized, scientific in the -imaginative sense that made him speculative beyond mere formulae, his was -an individuality that inspired a respect one could never quite account -for. He had keen dark eyes that twinkled, sometimes mockingly, sometimes, -if the word may be allowed, bitterly, yet often too with a good-humored -amusement which sympathy with human weaknesses could alone have -caused. A warm heart he certainly had, as more than one forlorn -passenger could testify. - -Conversation at their table was slow at first. It began at the lower end -where the French tourists chattered briskly over the soup, then crept -upwards like a slow fire o'erleaping various individuals who would not -catch. For instance, it passed the harvest-machine man; it passed the -nondescripts; it also passed the big light-haired stranger and his son. - -At the table behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the -Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side -Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found -it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to fragments of -the talk O'Malley found that his own eyes kept wandering down the -table--diagonally across--to the two strangers. Once or twice he -intercepted the doctor's glance traveling in the same direction, and on -these occasions it was on the tip of his tongue to make a remark about -them, or to ask a question. Yet the words did not come. Dr. Stahl, he -felt, knew a similar hesitation. Each, wanting to speak, yet kept -silence, waiting for the other to break the ice. - -"This _mistral_ is tiresome," observed the doctor, as the tide of talk -flowed up to his end and made a remark necessary. "It tries the nerves -of some." He glanced at O'Malley, but it was the fur-merchant who -replied, spreading a be-ringed hand over his plate to feel the warmth. - -"I know it well," he said pompously in a tone of finality; "it lasts -three, six, or nine days. But once across the Golfe de Lyons we shall be -free of it." - -"You think so? Ah, I am glad," ventured the priest with a timid smile -while he adroitly balanced meat and bullet-like green peas upon his -knife-blade. Tone, smile, and gesture were so gentle that the use of -steel in any form seemed incongruous. - -The voice of the fur-merchant came in domineeringly. - -"Of course. I have made this trip so often, I _know_. St. Petersburg to -Paris, a few weeks on the Riviera, then back by Constantinople and the -Crimea. It is nothing. I remember last year--" He pushed a large pearl -pin more deeply into his speckled tie and began a story that proved -chiefly how luxuriously he traveled. His eyes tried to draw the whole -end of the table into his circle, but while the Armenian listened -politely, with smiles and bows, Dr. Stahl turned to the Irishman again. -It Vas the year of Halley's comet and he began talking interestingly -about it. - -"... Three o'clock in the morning--any morning, yes--is the best time," -the doctor concluded, "and I'll have you called. You must see it through -my telescope. End of this week, say, after we leave Catania and turn -eastwards..." - -And at this instant, following a roar of laughter from the Captain's -table, came one of those abrupt pauses that sometimes catch an entire -room at once. All voices hushed. Even the merchant, setting down his -champagne glass, fell silent. One heard only the beating of the steamer's -screw, the rush of water below the port-holes, the soft scuffle of the -stewards' feet. The conclusion of the doctor's inconsiderable sentence -was sharply audible all over the room-- - -"... crossing the Ionian Sea toward the Isles of Greece." - -It rang across the pause, and at the same moment O'Malley caught the eyes -of the big stranger lifted suddenly and fixed upon the speaker's face as -though the words had summoned him. - -They shifted the same instant to his own, then dropped again to his -plate. Again the clatter of conversation drowned the room as before; the -merchant resumed his self-description in terms of gold; the doctor -discussed the gases of the comet's tail. But the swift-blooded Irishman -felt himself caught away strangely and suddenly into another world. -Out of the abyss of the subconscious there rose a gesture prophetic and -immense. The trivial phrase and that intercepted look opened a great -door of wonder in his heart. In a second he grew "absent-minded." Or, -rather, something touched a button and the whole machinery of his -personality shifted round noiselessly and instantaneously, presenting an -immediate new facet to the world. His normal, puny self-consciousness -slipped a moment into the majestic calm of some far larger state that -the stranger also knew. The Universe lies in every human heart, and he -plunged into that archetypal world that stands so close behind all -sensible appearances. He could neither explain nor attempt to explain, -but he sailed away into some giant swimming mood of beauty wherein -steamer, passengers, talk, faded utterly, the stranger and his son -remaining alone real and vital. He had seen; he could never forget. -Chance prepared the setting, but immense powers had rushed in and availed -themselves of it. Something deeply buried had flamed from the stranger's -eyes and beckoned to him. The fire ran from the big man to himself and -was gone. - -"The Isles of Greece--" The words were simple enough, yet it seemed to -O'Malley that the look they summoned to the stranger's eyes ensouled -them, transfiguring them with the significance of vital clues. They -touched the fringe of a mystery, magnificent and remote--some -transcendent psychical drama in the 'life of this man whose "bigness" -and whose "loneliness that must be whispered" were also in their way -other vital clues. Moreover, remembering his first sight of these two -upon the upper deck a few hours before, he understood that his own -spirit, by virtue of its peculiar and primitive yearnings, was involved -in the same mystery and included in the same hidden passion. - -The little incident illustrates admirably O'Malley's idiosyncrasy of -"seeing whole." In a lightning flash his inner sense had associated the -words and the glance, divining that the one had caused the other. That -pause provided the opportunity.... If Imagination, then it was creative -imagination; if true, it was assuredly spiritual insight of a rare -quality. - -He became aware that the twinkling eyes of his neighbor were observing -him keenly. For some moments evidently he had been absent-mindedly -staring down the table. He turned quickly and looked at the doctor -with frankness. This time it was impossible to avoid speech of some -kind. - -"Following those lights that do mislead the morn?" asked Dr. Stahl -slyly. "Your thoughts have been traveling. You've heard none of my last -remarks!" - -Under the clamor of the merchant's voice O'Malley replied in a lowered -tone: - -"I was watching those two half-way down the table opposite. They interest -you as well, I see." It was not a challenge exactly; if the tone was -aggressive, it was merely that he felt the subject was one on which they -would differ, and he scented an approaching discussion. The doctor's -reply, indicating agreement, surprised him a good deal. - -"They do; they interest me greatly." There was no trace of fight in the -voice. "That should cause _you_ no surprise." - -"Me--they simply fascinate," said O'Malley, always easily drawn. "What is -it? What do you see about them that is unusual? Do you, too, see them -'big'?" The doctor did not answer at once, and O'Malley added, "The -father's a tremendous fellow, but it's not that--" - -"Partly, though," said the other, "partly, I think." - -"What else, then?" The fur-merchant, still talking, prevented their -being overheard. "What is it marks them off so from the rest?" - -"Of all people _you_ should see," smiled the doctor quietly. "If a man -of your imagination sees nothing, what shall a poor exact mind like -myself see?" He eyed him keenly a moment. "You really mean that you -detect nothing?" - -"A certain distinction, yes; a certain aloofness from others. Isolated, -they seem in a way; rather a splendid isolation I should call it--" - -And then he stopped abruptly. It was most curious, but he was aware -that unwittingly in this way he had stumbled upon the truth, aware at -the same time that he resented discussing it with his companion--because -it meant at the same time discussing himself or something in himself he -wished to hide. His entire mood shifted again with completeness and -rapidity. He could not help it. It seemed suddenly as though he had been -telling the doctor secrets about himself, secrets moreover he would not -treat sympathetically. The doctor had been "at him," so to speak, -searching the depths of him with a probing acuteness the casual language -had disguised. - -"What are they, do you suppose: Finns, Russians, Norwegians, or what?" -the doctor asked. And the other replied briefly that he guessed they -might be Russians perhaps, South Russians. His tone was different. He -wished to avoid further discussion. At the first opportunity he neatly -changed the conversation. - -It was curious, the way proof came to him. Something in himself, wild as -the desert, something to do with that love of primitive life he discussed -only with the few who were intimately sympathetic toward it, this -something in his soul was so akin to a similar passion in these -strangers that to talk of it was to betray himself as well as them. - -Further, he resented Dr. Stahl's interest in them, because he felt it was -critical and scientific. Not far behind hid the analysis that would lay -them bare, leading to their destruction. A profound instinctive sense of -self-preservation had been stirred within him. - -Already, mysteriously guided by secret affinities, he had ranged himself -on the side of the strangers. - - - - -V - -"Mythology contains the history of the archetypal world. It comprehends -Past, Present, and Future." - ---NOVALIS, _Flower Pollen, Translated by U.C.B. - - -In this way there came between these two the slight barrier of a -forbidden subject that grew because neither destroyed it. O'Malley had -erected it; Dr. Stahl respected it. Neither referred again for a time to -the big Russian and his son. - -In his written account O'Malley, who was certainly no constructive -literary craftsman, left out apparently countless little confirmatory -details. By word of mouth he made me feel at once that this mystery -existed, however; and to weld the two together is a difficult task. There -nevertheless was this something about the Russian and his boy that -excited deep curiosity, accompanied by an aversion on the part of the -other passengers that isolated them; also, there was this competition on -the part of the two friends to solve it, from opposing motives. - -Had either of the strangers fallen seasick, the advantage would have -been easily with Dr. Stahl--professionally, but since they remained well, -and the doctor was in constant demand by the other passengers, it was -the Irishman who won the first move and came to close quarters by making -a personal acquaintance. His strong desire helped matters of course; for -he noticed with indignation that these two, quiet and inoffensive as they -were and with no salient cause of offence, were yet rejected by the main -body of passengers. They seemed to possess a quality that somehow -insulated them from approach, sending them effectually "to Coventry," and -in a small steamer where the travelers settle down into a kind of big -family life, this isolation was unpleasantly noticeable. - -It stood out in numerous little details that only a keen observer closely -watching could have taken into account. Small advances, travelers' -courtesies, and the like that ordinarily should have led to conversation, -in their case led to nothing. The other passengers invariably moved away -after a few moments, politely excusing themselves, as it were, from -further intercourse. And although at first the sight of this stirred in -him an instinct of revolt that was almost anger, he soon felt that the -couple not merely failed to invite, but even emanated some definite -atmosphere that repelled. And each time he witnessed these little scenes, -there grew more strongly in him the original picture he had formed of -them as beings rejected and alone, hunted by humanity as a whole, seeking -escape from loneliness into a place of refuge that they knew of, -definitely at last _en route_. - -Only an imaginative mind, thus concentrated upon them, could have -divined all this; yet to O'Malley it seemed plain as the day. With the -certitude, moreover, came the feeling, ever stronger, that the refuge -they sought would prove to be also the refuge he himself sought, the -difference being that whereas they knew, he still hesitated. - -Yet, in spite of this secret sympathy, imagined or discovered, he found -it no easy matter to approach the big man for speech. For a day and a -half he merely watched; attraction so strong excited caution; he paused, -waiting. His attention, however, was so keen that he seemed always to -know where they were and what they were doing. By instinct he was -aware in what part of the ship they would be found--for the most part -leaning over the rail alone in the bows, staring down at the churned -water together by the screws, pacing the after-deck in the dusk or early -morning when no one was about, or hidden away in some corner of the -upper deck, side by side, gazing at sea and sky. Their method of walking, -too, made it easy to single them out from the rest--a free, swaying -movement of the limbs, a swing of the shoulders, a gait that was -lumbering, almost clumsy, half defiant, yet at the same time graceful, -and curiously rapid. The body moved along swiftly for all its air of -blundering--a motion which was a counterpart of that elusive appearance -of great bulk, and equally difficult of exact determination. An air -went with them of being ridiculously confined by the narrow little decks. - -Thus it was that Genoa had been made and the ship was already half -way on to Naples before the opportunity for closer acquaintance presented -itself. Rather, O'Malley, unable longer to resist, forced it. It -seemed, too, inevitable as sunrise. - -Rain had followed the _mistral_ and the sea was rough. A rich land-taste -came about the ship like the smell of wet oaks when wind sweeps their -leaves after a sousing shower. In the hour before dinner, the decks -slippery with moisture, only one or two wrapped-up passengers in -deck-chairs below the awning, O'Malley, following a sure inner lead, -came out of the stuffy smoking-room into the air. It was already dark -and the drive of mist-like rain somewhat obscured his vision after the -glare. Only for a moment though--for almost the first thing he saw -was the Russian and his boy moving in front of him toward the aft -compasses. Like a single figure, huge and shadowy, they passed into the -darkness beyond with a speed that seemed as usual out of proportion -to their actual stride. They lumbered rapidly away. O'Malley caught that -final swing of the man's great shoulders as they disappeared, and, -leaving the covered deck, he made straight after them. And though neither -gave any sign that they had seen him, he felt that they were aware of his -coming--and even invited him. - -As he drew close a roll of the vessel brought them almost into each -other's arms, and the boy, half hidden beneath his parent's flowing -cloak, looked up at once and smiled. The saloon light fell dimly upon -his face. The Irishman saw that friendly smile of welcome, and lurched -forward with the roll of the deck. They brought up against the bulwarks, -and the big man put out an arm to steady him. They all three laughed -together. At close quarters, as usual again, the impression of bulk had -disappeared. - -And then, at first, utterly unlike real life, they said--nothing. The -boy moved round and stood close to his side so that he found himself -placed between them, all three leaning forward over the rails watching -the phosphorescence of the foam-streaked Mediterranean. - -Dusk lay over the sea; the shores of Italy not near enough to be visible; -the mist, the hour, the loneliness of the deserted decks, and something -else that was nameless, shut them in, these three, in a little world of -their own. A sentence or two rose in O'Malley's mind, but without finding -utterance, for he felt that no spoken words were necessary. He was -accepted without more ado. A deep natural sympathy existed between -them, recognized intuitively from that moment of first mutual inspection -at Marseilles. It was instinctive, almost as with animals. The action -of the boy in coming round to his side, unhindered by the father, was -the symbol of utter confidence and welcome. - -There came, then, one of those splendid and significant moments that -occasionally, for some, burst into life, flooding all barriers, breaking -down as with a flaming light the thousand erections of shadow that close -one in. Something imprisoned in himself swept outwards, rising like a -wave, bringing an expansion of life that "explained." It vanished, of -course, instantly again, but not before he had caught a flying remnant -that lit the broken puzzles of his heart and left things clearer. Before -thought, and therefore words, could overtake, it was gone; but there -remained at least this glimpse. The fire had flashed a light down -subterranean passages of his being and made visible for a passing second -some clue to his buried primitive yearnings. He partly understood. - -Standing there between these two this thing came over him with a -degree of intelligibility scarcely captured by his words. The man's -qualities--his quietness, peace, slowness, silence--betrayed somehow that -his inner life dwelt in a region vast and simple, shaping even his -exterior presentment with its own huge characteristics, a region wherein -the distress of the modern world's vulgar, futile strife could not -exist--more, could never _have_ existed. The Irishman, who had never -realized exactly why the life of Today to him was dreadful, now -understood it in the presence of this simple being with his atmosphere of -stately power. He was like a child, but a child of some pre-existence -utterly primitive and utterly forgotten; of no particular age, but of -some state that antedates all ages; simple in some noble, concentrated -sense that was prodigious, almost terrific. To stand thus beside him was -to stand beside a mighty silent fire, steadily glowing, a fire that fed -all lesser flames, because itself close to the central source of fire. He -felt warmed, lighted, vivified--made whole. The presence of this stranger -took him at a single gulp, as it were, straight into Nature--a Nature -that was alive. The man was part of her. Never before had he stood so -close and intimate. Cities and civilization fled away like transient -dreams, ashamed. The sun and moon and stars moved up and touched him. - -This word of lightning explanation, at least, came to him as he breathed -the other's atmosphere and presence. The region where this man's spirit -fed was at the center, whereas today men were active with a scattered, -superficial cleverness, at the periphery. He even understood that his -giant gait and movements were small outer evidences of this inner fact, -wholly in keeping. That blundering stupidity, half glorious, half -pathetic, with which he moved among his fellows was a physical -expression of this psychic fact that his spirit had never learned the -skilful tricks taught by civilization to lesser men. It was, in a way, -awe-inspiring, for he was now at last driving back full speed for his own -region and--escape. - -O'Malley knew himself caught, swept off his feet, momentarily driving -with him.... - -The singular deep satisfaction of it, standing there with these two in -the first moment, he describes as an entirely new sensation in his -life--an awareness that he was "complete." The boy touched his side and -he let an arm steal round to shelter him. The huge, bearded parent rose -in his massiveness against his other shoulder, hemming him in. For a -second he knew a swift and curious alarm, passing however almost at -once into the thrill of a rare happiness. In that moment, it was not the -passengers or the temper of Today who rejected them; it was they who -rejected the world: because they knew another and superior one--more, -they were in it. - -Then, without turning, the big man spoke, the words in heavy accented -English coming out laboriously and with slow, exceeding difficulty as -though utterance was a supreme effort. - -"You ... come ... with ... us?" It was like stammering almost. Still -more was it like essential inarticulateness struggling into an utterance -foreign to it--unsuited. The voice was a deep and windy bass, merging -with the noise of the sea below. - -"I'm going to the Caucasus," O'Malley replied; "up into the old, old -mountains, to--see things--to look about--to search--" He really wanted -to say much more, but the words lay dead or beyond reach. - -The big man nodded slowly. The boy listened. - -"And yourself--?" asked the Irishman, hardly knowing why he faltered and -trembled. - -The other smiled; a beauty that was beyond all language passed with that -smile across the great face in the dusk. - -"Some of us ... of ours ..." he spoke very slowly, very brokenly, -quarrying out the words with real labor, "... still survive... out -there.... We ... now go back. So very ... few ... remain.... And -you--come with us ..." - - - - -VI - -"In the spiritual Nature-Kingdom, man must everywhere seek his peculiar -territory and climate, his best occupation, his particular neighborhood, -in order to cultivate a Paradise in idea; this is the right system.... -Paradise is scattered over the whole earth, and that is why it has become -so unrecognizable." - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - -"Man began in instinct and will end in instinct. Instinct is genius in -Paradise, before the period of self-abstraction (self-knowledge)." - ---Ibid - - -"Look here, old man," he said to me, "I'll just tell you what it was, -because I know you won't laugh." - -We were lying under the big trees behind the Round Pond when he reached -this point, and his direct speech was so much more graphic than the -written account that I use it. He was in one of his rare moments of -confidence, excited, hat off, his shabby tie escaping from the shabbier -grey waistcoat. One sock lay untidily over his boot, showing bare leg. - -Children's voices floated to us from the waterside as though from very -far away, the nursemaids and perambulators seemed tinged with unreality, -the London towers were clouds, its roar the roar of waves. I saw only the -ship's deck, the grey and misty sea, the uncouth figures of the two who -leaned with him over the bulwarks. - -"Go on," I said encouragingly; "out with it!" - -"It must seem incredible to most men, but, by Gad, I swear to you, it -lifted me off my feet, and I've never known anything like it. The mind -of that great fellow got hold of me, included me. He made the inanimate -world--sea, stars, wind, woods, and mountains--seem all alive. The entire -blessed universe was conscious--and he came straight out of it to get me. -I understood things about myself I've never understood before--and always -funked rather;--especially that feeling of being out of touch with my -kind, of finding no one in the world today who speaks my language -quite--that, and the utter, God-forsaken loneliness it makes me suffer--" - -"You always have been a lonely beggar really," I said, noting the -hesitation that thus on the very threshold checked his enthusiasm, -quenching the fire in those light-blue eyes. "Tell me. I shall understand -right enough--or try to." - -"God bless you," he answered, leaping to the sympathy, "I believe you -will. There's always been this primitive, savage thing in me that keeps -others away--puts them off, and so on. I've tried to smother it a bit -sometimes--" - -"Have you?" I laughed. - -"'Tried to,' I said, because I've always been afraid of its getting out -too much and bustin' my life all to pieces:--something lonely and untamed -and sort of outcast from cities and money and all the thick suffocating -civilization of today; and I've only saved myself by getting off into -wildernesses and free places where I could give it a breathin' chance -without running the risk of being locked up as a crazy man." He laughed -as he said it, but his heart was in the words. "You know all that; -haven't I told you often enough? It's not a morbid egoism, or what their -precious academic books so stupidly call 'degenerate,' for in me it's -damned vital and terrific, and moves always to action. It's made me an -alien and--and--" - -"Something far stronger than the Call of the Wild, isn't it?" - -He fairly snorted. "Sure as we're both alive here sittin' on this sooty -London grass," he cried. "This Call of the Wild they prate about is -just the call a fellow hears to go on 'the bust' when he's had too much -town and's got bored--a call to a little bit of license and excess to -safety-valve him down. What I feel," his voice turned grave and quiet -again, "is quite a different affair. It's the call of real hunger--the -call of food. They want to let off steam, but I want to take in stuff to -prevent--starvation." He whispered the word, putting his lips close to my -face. - -A pause fell between us, which I was the first to break. - -"This is not your century! That's what you really mean," I suggested -patiently. - -"Not my century!" he caught me up, flinging handfuls of faded grass in -the air between us and watching it fall; "why, it's not even my world! -And I loathe, loathe the spirit of today with its cheap-jack inventions, -and smother of sham universal culture, its murderous superfluities and -sordid vulgarity, without enough real sense of beauty left to see that a -daisy is nearer heaven than an airship--" - -"Especially when the airship falls," I laughed. "Steady, steady, old boy; -don't spoil your righteous case by overstatement." - -"Well, well, you know what I mean," he laughed with me, though his face -at once turned earnest again, "and all that, and all that, and all -that.... And so this savagery that has burned in me all these years -unexplained, these Russian strangers made clear. I can't tell you how -because I don't know myself. The father did it--his proximity, his -silence stuffed with sympathy, his great vital personality unclipped by -contact with these little folk who left him alone. His presence alone -made me long for the earth and Nature. He seemed a living part of it -all. He was magnificent and enormous, but the devil take me if I know -how." - -"He said nothing--that referred to it directly?" - -"Nothing but what I've told you,--blundering awkwardly with those few -modern words. But he had it in him a thousand to my one. He made me feel -I was right and natural, untrue to myself to suppress it and a coward to -fear it. The speech-center in the brain, you know, is anyhow a -comparatively recent thing in evolution. They say that--" - -"It wasn't his century either," I checked him again. - -"No, and he didn't pretend it was, as I've tried to," he cried, sitting -bolt upright beside me. "The fellow was genuine, never dreamed of -compromise. D'ye see what I mean? Only somehow he'd found out where his -world and century were, and was off to take possession. And that's what -caught me. I felt it by some instinct in me stronger than all else; only -we couldn't talk about it definitely because--because--I hardly know how -to put it--for the same reason," he added suddenly, "that I can't talk -about it to you _now!_ There are no words.... What we both sought was a -state that passed away before words came into use, and is therefore -beyond intelligible description. No one spoke to them on the ship for -the same reason, I felt sure, that no one spoke to them in the whole -world--because no one could manage even the alphabet of their language. - -"And this was so strange and beautiful," he went on, "that standing -there beside him, in his splendid atmosphere, the currents of wind and -sea reached _me through him first_, filtered by his spirit so that I -assimilated them and they fed me, because he somehow stood in such close -and direct relation to Nature. I slipped into my own region, made happy -and alive, knowing at last what I wanted, though still unable to phrase -it. This modern world I've so long tried to adjust myself to became a -thing of pale remembrance and a dream...." - -"All in your mind and imagination, of course, this," I ventured, -seeing that his poetry was luring him beyond where I could follow. - -"Of course," he answered without impatience, grown suddenly thoughtful, -less excited again, "and that's why it was true. No chance of clumsy -senses deceiving one. It was direct vision. What is Reality, in the last -resort," he asked, "but the thing a man's vision brings to him--to -believe? There's no other criterion. The criticism of opposite types -of mind is merely a confession of their own limitations." - -Being myself of the "opposite type of mind," I naturally did not argue, -but suffered myself to accept his half-truth for the whole--temporarily. -I checked him from time to time merely lest he should go too fast for me -to follow what seemed a very wonderful tale of faerie. - -"So this wild thing in me the world today has beggared and denied," he -went on, swept by his Celtic enthusiasm, "woke in its full strength. -Calling to me like some flying spirit in a storm, it claimed me. The -man's being summoned me back to the earth and Nature, as it were, -automatically. I understood that look on his face, that sign in his eyes. -The 'Isles of Greece' furnished some faint clue, but as yet I knew no -more--only that he and I were in the same region and that I meant to -go with him and that he accepted me with delight that was joy. It drew -me as empty space draws a giddy man to the precipice's edge. Thoughts -from another's mind," he added by way of explanation, turning round, -"come far more completely to me when I stand in a man's atmosphere, -silent and receptive, than when by speech he tries to place them there. -Ah! And that helps me to get at what I mean, perhaps. The man, you -see, hardly thought; he _felt_." - -"As an animal, you mean? Instinctively--?" - -"In a sense, yes," he replied after a momentary hesitation. "Like some -very early, very primitive form of life." - -"With the best will in the world, Terence, I don't quite follow you--" - -"I don't quite follow myself," he cried, "because I'm trying to lead -and follow at the same time. You know that idea--I came across it -somewhere--that in ancient peoples the senses were much less specialized -than they are now; that perception came to them in general, massive -sensations rather than divided up neatly into five channels:--that they -felt all over so to speak, and that all the senses, as in an overdose of -hashish, become one single sense? The centralizing of perception in the -brain is a recent thing, and it might equally well have occurred in any -other nervous headquarters of the body, say, the solar plexus; or, -perhaps, never have been localized at all! In hysteria patients have been -known to read with the finger-tips and smell with the heel. Touch is -still all over; it's only the other four that have got fixed in definite -organs. There are systems of thought today that still would make the -solar plexus the main center, and not the brain. The word 'brain,' you -know, never once occurs in the ancient Scriptures of the world. You will -not find it in the Bible--the reins, the heart, and so forth were what -men felt with then. They felt all over--well," he concluded abruptly, "I -think this fellow was like that. D'ye see now?" - -I stared at him, greatly wondering. A nursemaid passed close, balancing a -child in a spring-perambulator, saying in a foolish voice, "Wupsey up, -wupsey down! Wupsey there!" O'Malley, in the full stream of his mood, -waited impatiently till she had gone by. Then, rolling over on his side, -he came closer, talking in a lowered tone. I think I never saw him so -deeply stirred, nor understood, perhaps, so little of the extreme -passion working in him. Yet it was incredible that he could have caught -so much from mere interviews with a semi-articulate stranger, unless -what he said was strictly true, and this Russian had positively touched -latent fires in his soul by a kind of sympathetic magic. - -"You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for -himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, -and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a -person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him. Well--I'd found mine, -that's all. I can't prove it to you with a pair of scales or a butcher's -meat-axe, but it's true." - -"And you mean his mere presence conveyed all this without speech almost?" - -"Because there _was_ no speech possible," he replied, dropping his voice -to a whisper and thrusting his face yet closer into mine. "We were -solitary survivors of a world whose language was either uncreated or"--he -italicized the word--"_forgotten_...." - -"An elaborate and detailed thought-transference, then?" - -"Why not?" he murmured. "It's one of the commonest facts of daily life." - -"And you had never fully realized it before, this loneliness and its -possible explanation--that there might exist, I mean, a way of satisfying -it--till you met this stranger?" - -He answered with deep earnestness. "Always, old man, always, but suffered -under it atrociously because I'd never understood it. I had been afraid -to face it. This man, a far bigger and less diluted example of it than -myself, made it all clear and right and natural. We belonged to the same -forgotten place and time. Under his lead and guidance I could find my -own--return...." - -I whistled a long soft whistle, looking up into the sky. Then, sitting -upright like himself, we stared hard at one another, straight in the eye. -He was too grave, too serious to trifle with. It would have been unfair -too. Besides, I loved to hear him. The way he reared such fabulous -superstructures upon slight incidents, interpreting thus his complex -being to himself, was uncommonly interesting. It was observing the -creative imagination actually at work, and the process in a sense seemed -sacred. Only the truth and actuality with which he clothed it all made -me a little uncomfortable sometimes. - -"I'll put it to you quite simply," he cried suddenly. - -"Yes, and 'quite simply' it was--?" - -"That he knew the awful spiritual loneliness of living in a world whose -tastes and interests were not his own, a world to which he was -essentially foreign, and at whose hands he suffered continual rebuff and -rejection. Advances from either side were mutually and necessarily -repelled because oil and water cannot mix. Rejected, moreover, not -merely by a family, tribe, or nation, but by a race and time--by the -whole World of Today; an outcast and an alien, a desolate survival." - -"An appalling picture!" - -"I understood it," he went on, holding up both hands by way of emphasis, -"because in miniature I had suffered the same: he was a supreme case of -what lay so deeply in myself. He was a survival of other life the modern -mind has long since agreed to exile and deny. Humanity stared at him over -a barrier, never dreaming of asking him in. Even had it done so he could -not by the law of his being have accepted. Outcast myself in some small -way, I understood his terrible loneliness, a soul without a country, -visible and external country that is. A passion of tenderness and -sympathy for him, and so also for myself, awoke. I saw him as chieftain -of all the lonely, exiled souls of life." - -Breathless a moment, he lay on his back staring at the summer -clouds--those thoughts of wind that change and pass before their meanings -can be quite seized. Similarly protean was the thought his phrases tried -to clothe. The terror, pathos, sadness of this big idea he strove to -express touched me deeply, yet never quite with the clarity of his own -conviction. - -"There _are_ such souls, _dépaysées_ and in exile," he said suddenly -again, turning over on the grass. "They _do_ exist. They walk the earth -today here and there in the bodies of ordinary men ... and their -loneliness is a loneliness that must be whispered." - -"You formed any idea what kind of--of survival?" I asked gently, for -the notion grew in me that after all these two would prove to be mere -revolutionaries in escape, political refugees, or something quite -ordinary. - -O'Malley buried his face in his hands for a moment without replying. -Presently he looked up. I remember that a streak of London black ran -from the corner of his mouth across the cheek. He pushed the hair back -from his forehead, answering in a manner grown abruptly calm and -dispassionate. - -"Don't ye see what a foolish question that is," he said quietly, "and -how impossible to satisfy, inviting that leap of invention which can be -only an imaginative lie...? I can only tell you," and the breeze brought -to us the voices of children from the Round Pond where they sailed -their ships of equally wonderful adventure, "that my own longing -became this: to go with him, to know what he knew, to live where he -lived--forever." - -"And the alarm you said you felt?" - -He hesitated. - -"That," he added, "was a kind of mistake. To go involved, I felt, an -inner catastrophe that might be Death--that it would be out of the body, -I mean, or a going backwards. In reality, it was a going forwards and a -way to Life." - - - - -VII - - -And it was just before the steamer made Naples that the jolly Captain -unwittingly helped matters forward a good deal. For it was his ambition -to include in the safe-conduct of his vessel the happy-conduct also of -his passengers. He liked to see them contented and of one accord, a big -family, and he noted--or had word brought to him perhaps--that there were -one or two whom the attitude of the majority left out in the cold. - -It may have been--O'Malley wondered without actually asking--that -the man who shared the cabin with the strangers made some appeal for -re-arrangement, but in any case Captain Burgenfelder approached the -Irishman that afternoon on the bridge and asked if he would object -to having them in his stateroom for the balance of the voyage. - -"Your present gompanion geds off at Naples," he said. "Berhaps you would -not object. I think--they seem lonely. You are friendly with them. They -go alzo to Batoum?" - -This proposal for close quarters gave him pause. He knew a moment or two -of grave hesitation, yet without time to analyze it. Then, driven by a -sudden decision of the heart that knew no revision of reason, he agreed. - -"I had better, perhaps, suggest it to see if they are willing," he said -the next minute, hedging. - -"I already ask him dat." - -"Oh, you have! And he would like it--not object, I mean?" he added, aware -of a subtle sense of half-frightened pleasure. - -"Pleased and flattered on the contrary," was the reply, as he handed him -the glasses to look at Ischia rising blue from the sea. - -O'Malley felt as though his decision was somehow an act of -self-committal, almost grave. It meant that impulsively he accepted a -friendship which concealed in its immense attraction--danger. He had -taken the plunge. - -The rush of it broke over him like a wave, setting free a tumult of very -deep emotion. He raised the glasses automatically to his eyes, but -looking through them he saw not Ischia nor the opening the Captain -explained the ship would make, heading that evening for Sicily. He saw -quite another picture that drew itself up out of himself--was thrown -up, rather, somewhat with violence, as upon a landscape of dream-scenery. -The lens of passionate yearning in himself, ever unsatisfied, focused -it against a background far, far away, in some faint distance that was -neither of space nor time, and might equally have been past as future. -Large figures he saw, shadowy yet splendid, that ran free-moving as -clouds over mighty hills, vital with the abundant strong life of a -younger world.... Yet never quite saw them, never quite overtook them, -for their speed and the manner of their motion bewildered the sight.... - -Moreover, though they evaded him in terms of physical definition he knew -a sense of curious, half-remembered familiarity. Some portion of his -hidden self, uncaught, unharnessed by anything in modern life, rose with -a passionate rush of joy and made after them--something in him untamed as -wind. His mind stood up, as it were, and shouted "I am coming." For he -saw himself not far behind, as a man, racing with great leaps to join -them ... yet never overtaking, never drawing close enough to see quite -clearly. The roar of their tramping shook the very blood in his ears.... - -His decision to accept the strangers had set free in his being something -that thus for the first time in his life--escaped.... Symbolically -in his mind this Escape had taken picture form.... - -The Captain's voice was asking for the glasses; with a wrench that -caused almost actual physical pain he tore himself away, letting this -herd of Flying Thoughts sink back into the shadows and disappear. With -sharp regret he saw them go--a regret for long, long, far-off things.... - -Turning, he placed the field-glasses carefully in that fat open hand -stretched out to receive them, and noted as he did so the thick, pink -fingers that closed about the strap, the heavy ring of gold, the band of -gilt about the sleeve. That wrought gold, those fleshy fingers, the -genial gutteral voice saying "T'anks" were symbols of an existence tamed -and artificial that caged him in again.... - -Then he went below and found that the lazy "drummer" who talked -harvest-machines to puzzled peasants had landed, and in his place an -assortment of indiscriminate clothing belonging to the big Russian and -his son lay scattered over the upper berth and upon the sofa-bed beneath -the port-hole. - - - - -VIII - -"For my own part I find in some of these abnormal or supernormal facts -the strongest suggestions in favor of a superior consciousness being -possible. I doubt whether we shall ever understand some of them without -using the very letter of Fechner's conception of a great reservoir in -which the memories of earth's inhabitants are pooled and preserved, and -from which, when the threshold lowers or the valve opens, information -ordinarily shut out leaks into the mind of exceptional individuals among -us." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - - -And it was some hours later, while the ship made for the open sea, that -he told Dr. Stahl casually of the new arrangement and saw the change come -so suddenly across his face. Stahl stood back from the compass-box -whereon they leaned, and putting a hand upon his companion's shoulder, -looked a moment into his eyes. With surprise O'Malley noted that the pose -of cynical disbelief was gone; in its place was sympathy, interest, -kindness. The words he spoke came from his heart. - -"Is that true?" he asked, as though the news disturbed him. - -"Of course. Why not? Is there anything wrong?" He felt uneasy. The -doctor's manner confirmed the sense that he had done a rash thing. -Instantly the barrier between the two crumbled and he lost the first -feeling of resentment that his friends should be analyzed. The men thus -came together in unhindered sincerity. - -"Only," said the doctor thoughtfully, half gravely, "that--I may have -done you a wrong, placed you, that is, in a position of--" he hesitated -an instant,--"of difficulty. It was I who suggested the change." - -O'Malley stared at him. - -"I don't understand you quite." - -"It is this," continued the other, still holding him with his eyes. He -said it deliberately. "I have known you for some time, formed-er--an -opinion of your type of mind and being--a very rare and curious one, -interesting me deeply--" - -"I wasn't aware you'd had me under the microscope," O'Malley laughed, but -restlessly. - -"Though you felt it and resented it--justly, I may say--to the point of -sometimes avoiding me--" - -"As doctor, scientist," put in O'Malley, while the other, ignoring the -interruption, continued in German:-- - -"I always had the secret hope, as 'doctor and scientist,' let us put it -then, that I might one day see you in circumstances that should bring -out certain latent characteristics I thought I divined in you. I wished -to observe you--your psychical being--under the stress of certain -temptations, favorable to these characteristics. Our brief voyages -together, though they have so kindly ripened our acquaintance into -friendship"--he put his hand again on the other's shoulder smiling, -while O'Malley replied with a little nod of agreement--"have, of course, -never provided the opportunity I refer to--" - -"Ah--!" - -"Until now!" the doctor added. "Until now." - -Puzzled and interested the Irishman waited for him to go on, but the -man of science, who was now a ship's doctor, hesitated. He found it -difficult, apparently, to say what was in his thoughts. - -"You refer, of course, though I hardly follow you quite--to our big -friends?" O'Malley helped him. - -The adjective slipped out before he was aware of it. His companion's -expression admitted the accuracy of the remark. "You also see them--big, -then?" he said, quickly taking him up. He was not cross-questioning; -out of keen sympathetic interest he asked it. - -"Sometimes, yes," the Irishman answered, more astonished. "Sometimes -only--" - -"Exactly. Bigger than they really are; as though at times they gave -out--emanated--something that extended their appearance. Is that it?" - -O'Malley, his confidence wholly won, more surprised, too, than he quite -understood, seized Stahl by the arm and drew him toward the rails. They -leaned over, watching the sea. A passenger, pacing the decks before -dinner, passed close behind them. - -"But, doctor," he said in a hushed tone as soon as the steps had died -away, "you are saying things that I thought were half in my imagination -only, not true in the ordinary sense quite--your sense, I mean?" - -For some moments the doctor made no reply. In his eyes a curious -steady gaze replaced the usual twinkle. When at length he spoke it was -evidently following a train of thought of his own, playing round a -subject he seemed half ashamed of and yet desired to state with direct -language. - -"A being akin to yourself," he said in low tones, "only developed, -enormously developed; a Master in your own peculiar region, and a man -whose influence acting upon you at close quarters could not fail to -arouse the latent mind-storms"--he chose the word hesitatingly, as -though seeking for a better he could not find on the moment,--"always -brewing in you just below the horizon." - -He turned and watched his companion's face keenly. O'Malley was too -impressed to feel annoyance. - -"Well--?" he asked, feeling the adventure closing round him with quite a -new sense of reality. "Well?" he repeated louder. "Please go on. I'm not -offended, only uncommonly interested. You leave me in a fog, so far. I -think you owe me more than hints." - -"I do," said the other simply. "About that man is a singular quality -too rare for language to have yet coined its precise description: -something that is essentially"--they had lapsed into German now, and he -used the German word--"_unheimlich_." - -The Irishman started. He recognized this for truth. At the same time -the old resentment stirred a little in him, creeping into his reply. - -"You have studied him closely then--had him, too, under the microscope? -In this short time?" - -This time the answer did not surprise him, however. - -"My friend," he heard, while the other turned from him and gazed out over -the misty sea, "I have not been a ship's doctor--always. I am one now -only because the leisure and quiet give me the opportunity to finish -certain work, recording work. For years I was in the H----"--he mentioned -the German equivalent for the Salpêtrière--"years of research and -investigation into the astonishing vagaries of the human mind and -spirit--with certain results, followed later privately, that it is now my -work to record. And among many cases that might well seem--er--beyond -either credence or explanation,"--he hesitated again slightly--"I came -across one, one in a million, let us admit, that an entire section of my -work deals with under the generic term of _Urmenschen_." - -"Primitive men," O'Malley snapped him up, translating. Through his -growing bewilderment ran also a growing uneasiness shot strangely -with delight. Intuitively he divined what was coming. - -"Beings," the doctor corrected him, "not men. The prefix _Ur-_, moreover, -I use in a deeper sense than is usually attached to it as in _Urwald_, -_Urwelt_, and the like. An _Urmensch_ in the world today must suggest a -survival of an almost incredible kind--a kind, too, utterly inadmissible -and inexplicable to the materialist perhaps--" - -"Paganistic?" interrupted the other sharply, joy and fright rising over -him. - -"Older, older by far," was the rejoinder, given with a curious hush and a -lowering of the voice. - -The suggestion rushed into full possession of O'Malley's mind. There rose -in him something that claimed for his companions the sea, the wind, the -stars--tumultuous and terrific. But he said nothing. The conception, -blown into him thus for the first time at full strength, took all his -life into its keeping. No energy was left over for mere words. The -doctor, he was aware, was looking at him, the passion of discovery and -belief in his eyes. His manner kindled. It was the hidden Stahl emerging. - -"... a type, let me put it," he went on in a voice whose very steadiness -thrilled his listener afresh, "that in its strongest development would -experience in the world today the loneliness of a complete and absolute -exile. A return to humanity, you see, of some unexpended power of -mythological values...." - -"Doctor...!" - -The shudder passed through him and away almost as soon as it came. Again -the sea grew splendid, the thunder of the waves held voices calling, and -the foam framed shapes and faces, wildly seductive, though fugitive as -dreams. The words he had heard moved him profoundly. He remembered how -the presence of the stranger had turned the world alive. - -He knew what was coming, too, and gave the lead direct, while yet -half afraid to ask the question. - -"So my friend--this big 'Russian'--?" - -"I have known before, yes, and carefully studied." - - - - -IX - -"Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much -transcending Intelligence and Will as these transcend mechanical -motion?" - ---HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_ - - -The two men left the rail and walked arm in arm along the deserted deck, -speaking in lowered voices. - -"He came first to us, brought by the keeper of an obscure hotel where he -was staying, as a case of lapse of memory--loss of memory, I should say, -for it was complete. He was unable to say who he was, whence he came, or -to whom he belonged. Of his land or people we could learn nothing. His -antecedents were an utter blank. Speech he had practically none of his -own--nothing but the merest smattering of many tongues, a word here, a -word there. Utterance, indeed, of any kind was exceedingly difficult to -him. For years, evidently, he had wandered over the world, companionless -among men, seeking his own, finding no place where to lay his head. -People, it seemed, both men and women, kept him at arm's-length, feeling -afraid; the keeper of the little hotel was clearly terrified. This -quality he had that I mentioned just now, repelled human beings--even in -the Hospital it was noticeable--and placed him in the midst of humanity -thus absolutely alone. It is a quality more rare than"--hesitating, -searching for a word--"purity, one almost extinct today, one that I have -never before or since come across in any other being--hardly ever, that -is to say," he qualified the sentence, glancing significantly at his -companion. - -"And the boy?" O'Malley asked quickly, anxious to avoid any discussion -of himself. - -"There was no boy then. He has found him since. He may find others -too--possibly!" The Irishman drew his arm out, edging away imperceptibly. -That shiver of joy reached him from the air and sea, perhaps. - -"And two years ago," continued Dr. Stahl, as if nothing had happened, -"he was discharged, harmless"--he lingered a moment on the word, "if not -cured. He was to report to us every six months. He has never done so." - -"You think he remembers you?" - -"No. It is quite clear that he has lapsed back completely again into -the--er--state whence he came to us, that unknown world where he -passed his youth with others of his kind, but of which he has been able -to reveal no single detail to us, nor we to trace the slightest clue." - -They stopped beneath the covered portion of the deck, for the mist -had now turned to rain. They leaned against the smoking-room outer -wall. In O'Malley's mind the thoughts and feelings plunged and reared. -Only with difficulty did he control himself. - -"And this man, you think," he asked with outward calmness, "is of--of -my kind?" - -"'Akin,' I said. I suggest--" But O'Malley cut him short. - -"So that you engineered our sharing a cabin with a view to putting -him again--putting us both--under the microscope?" - -"My scientific interest was very strong," Dr. Stahl replied carefully. -"But it is not too late to change. I offer you a bed in my own roomy -cabin on the promenade deck. Also, I ask your forgiveness." - -The Irishman, large though his imaginative creed was, felt oddly checked, -baffled, stupefied by what he had heard. He knew perfectly well what -Stahl was driving at, and that revelations of another kind were yet -to follow. What bereft him of very definite speech was this new fact -slowly awakening in his consciousness which hypnotized him, as it were, -with its grandeur. It seemed to portend that his own primitive yearnings, -so-called, grew out of far deeper foundations than he had yet dreamed -of even. Stahl, should he choose to listen, meant to give him -explanation, quasi-scientific explanation. This talk about a survival of -"unexpended mythological values" carried him off his feet. He knew it was -true. Veiled behind that carefully chosen phrase was something more--a -truth brilliantly discovered. He knew, too, that it bit at the -platform-boards upon which his personality, his sanity, his very life, -perhaps, rested--his modern life. - -"I forgive you, Dr. Stahl," he heard himself saying with a deceptive -calmness of voice as they stood shoulder to shoulder in that dark corner, -"for there is really nothing to forgive. The characteristics of these -_Urmenschen_ you describe attract me very greatly. Your words merely give -my imagination a letter of introduction to my reason. They burrow -among the foundations of my life and being. At least--you have done -me no wrong...." He knew the words were wild, impulsive, yet he could -find no better. Above all things he wished to conceal his rising, grand -delight. - -"I thank you," Stahl said simply, yet with a certain confusion. "I--felt -I owed you this explanation--er--this confession." - -"You wished to warn me?" - -"I wished to say 'Be careful' rather. I say it now--Be careful! I give -you this invitation to share my cabin for the remainder of the voyage, -and I urge you to accept it." The offer was from the heart, while the -scientific interest in the man obviously half hoped for a refusal. - -"You think harm might come to me?" - -"Not physically. The man is gentle and safe in every way." - -"But there _is_ danger--in your opinion?" insisted the other. - -"There _is_ danger--" - -"That his influence may make me as himself--an _Urmensch_?" - -"That he may--get you," was the curious answer, given steadily after -a moment's pause. - -Again the words thrilled O'Malley to the core of his delighted, -half-frightened soul. "You really mean that?" he asked again; "as 'doctor -and scientist,' you mean it?" - -Stahl replied with a solemn anxiety in eyes and voice. "I mean that you -have in yourself that 'quality' which makes the proximity of this 'being' -dangerous: in a word that he may take you--er--with him." - -"Conversion?" - -"Appropriation." - -They moved further up the deck together for some minutes in silence, but -the Irishman's feelings, irritated by the man's prolonged evasion, -reached a degree of impatience that was almost anger. "Let us be more -definite," he exclaimed at length a trifle hotly. "You mean that I might -go insane?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense," came the answer without a sign of annoyance -or hesitation; "but that something might happen to you--something that -science could not recognize and medical science could not treat--" - -Then O'Malley interrupted him with the vital question that rushed -out before he could consider its wisdom or legitimacy. - -"Then what really is he--this man, this 'being' whom you call a -'survival,' and who makes you fear for my safety. Tell me _exactly_ what -he is?" - -They found themselves just then by the doctor's cabin, and Stahl, -pushing the door open, led him in. Taking the sofa for himself, he -pointed to an armchair opposite. - - - - -X - -"Superstition is outside reason; so is revelation." - ---OLD SAYING - - -And O'Malley understood that he had pressed the doctor to the verge of -confessing some belief that he was ashamed to utter or to hold, something -forced upon him by his out-of-the-way experience of life to which his -scientific training said peremptorily "No." Further, that he watched him -keenly all the time, noting the effect his words produced. - -"He is not a human being at all," he continued with a queer thin whisper -that conveyed a gravity of conviction singularly impressive, "in the -sense in which you and I are accustomed to use the term. His inner being -is not shaped, as his outer body, upon quite--human lines. He is a Cosmic -Being--a direct expression of cosmic life. A little bit, a fragment, of -the Soul of the World, and in that sense a survival--a survival of her -youth." - -The Irishman, as he listened to these utterly unexpected words, felt -something rise within him that threatened to tear him asunder. Whether -it was joy or terror, or compounded strangely of the two, he could not -tell. It seemed as if he stood upon the edge of hearing something--spoken -by a man who was no mere dreamer like himself--that would explain the -world, himself, and all his wildest cravings. He both longed and feared -to hear it. In his hidden and most secret thoughts, those thoughts he -never uttered to another, this deep belief in the Earth as a conscious, -sentient, living Being had persisted in spite of all the forces education -and modern life had turned against it. It seemed in him an undying -instinct, an unmovable conviction, though he hardly dared acknowledge it -even to himself. - -He had always "dreamed" the Earth alive, a mothering organism to -humanity; and himself, _via_ his love of Nature, in some sweet close -relation to her that other men had forgotten or ignored. Now, therefore, -to hear Stahl talk of Cosmic Beings, fragments of the Soul of the World, -and "survivals of her early life" was like hearing a great shout of -command to his soul to come forth and share it in complete -acknowledgment. - -He bit his lips, pinched himself, stared. Then he took the black cigar he -was aware was being handed to him, lit it with fingers that trembled -absurdly, and smoked as hard as though his sanity depended on his -finishing it in a prescribed time. Great clouds rose before his face. But -his soul within him came up with a flaming rush of speed, shouting, -singing.... - -There was enough ash to knock off into the bronze tray beside him before -either said a word. He watched the little operation as closely as though -he were aiming a rifle. The ash, he saw, broke firmly. "This must be a -really good cigar," he thought to himself, for as yet he had not been -conscious of tasting it. The ash-tray, he also saw, was a kind of nymph, -her spread drapery forming the receptacle. "I must get one of those," he -thought. "I wonder what they cost." Then he puffed violently again. The -doctor had risen and was pacing the cabin floor slowly over by the red -curtain that concealed the bunk. O'Malley absent-mindedly watched -him, and as he did so the words he had heard kept on roaring at the -back of his mind. - -And then, while silence still held the room,--swift, too, as a second -although it takes time to write--flashed through him a memory of Fechner, -the German philosopher who held that the Universe was everywhere -consciously alive, and that the Earth was the body of a living Entity, -and that the World-Soul or Cosmic Consciousness is something more than a -picturesque dream of the ancients.... - -The doctor came to anchor again on the sofa opposite. To his great relief -he was the first to break the silence, for O'Malley simply did not know -how or where to begin. - -"We know today--_you_ certainly know for I've read it accurately -described in your books--that the human personality can extend itself -under certain conditions called abnormal. It can project portions of -itself, show itself even at a distance, operate away from the central -covering body. In exactly similar fashion may the Being of the Earth -have projected portions of herself in the past. Of such great powers or -beings there may be conceivably a survival ... a survival of a hugely -remote period when her Consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in -shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing -humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a -flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all -sorts and kinds...." - -And then, suddenly, as though he had been deliberately giving his -imagination rein yet now regretted it, his voice altered, his manner -assumed a shade of something colder. He shifted the key, as though to -another aspect of his belief. The man was talking swiftly of his -experiences in the big and private hospitals. He was describing _the_ -very belief to which he had first found himself driven--the belief that -had opened the door to so much more. So far as O'Malley could follow it -in his curiously excited condition of mind, it was little more or less -than a belief he himself had often played lovingly with--the theory that -a man has a fluid or etheric counterpart of himself which is obedient to -strong desire and can, under certain conditions, be detached--projected -in a shape dictated by that desire. - -He only realized this fully later perhaps, for the doctor used a -phraseology of his own. Stahl was telling calmly how he had been driven -to some such belief by the facts that had come under his notice both -in the asylums and in his private practice. - -"...That in the amazingly complex personality of a human being," he went -on, "there does exist some vital constituent, a part of consciousness, -that can leave the body for a short time without involving death; that it -is something occasionally visible to others; something malleable by -thought and desire--especially by intense and prolonged yearning; and -that it can even bring relief to its owner by satisfying in some -subjective fashion the very yearnings that drew it forth." - -"Doctor! You mean the 'astral'?" - -"There is no name I know of. I can give it none. I mean in other words -that it can create the conditions for such satisfaction--dream-like, -perhaps, yet intense and seemingly very real at the time. Great emotion, -for instance, drives it forth, explaining thus appearances at a distance, -and a hundred other phenomena that my investigations of abnormal -personality have forced me to recognize as true. And nostalgia often is -the means of egress, the channel along which all the inner forces and -desires of the heart stream elsewhere toward their fulfillment in some -person, place, or _dream_." - -Stahl was giving himself his head, talking freely of beliefs that rarely -found utterance. Clearly it was a relief to him to do so--to let himself -be carried away. There was, after all, the poet in him side by side with -the observer and analyst, and the fundamental contradiction in his -character stood most interestingly revealed. O'Malley listened, half in a -dream, wondering what this had to do with the Cosmic Life just mentioned. - -"Moreover, the appearance, the aspect of this etheric Double, molded -thus by thought, longing, and desire, corresponds to such thought, -longing, and desire. Its shape, when visible shape is assumed, may be -various--very various. The form might conceivably be _felt_, discerned -clairvoyantly as an emanation rather than actually seen," he continued. - -Then he added, looking closely at his companion, "and in your own case -this Double--it has always seemed to me--may be peculiarly easy of -detachment from the rest of you." - -"I certainly create my own world and slip into it--to some extent," -murmured the Irishman, absorbingly interested; "--reverie and so forth; -partially, at any rate." - -"'Partially,' yes, in your reveries of waking consciousness," Stahl took -him up, "but in sleep--in the trance consciousness--completely! And -therein lies your danger," he added gravely; "for to pass out completely -in _waking_ consciousness, is the next step--an easy one; and it -constitutes, not so much a disorder of your being, as a readjustment, but -a readjustment difficult of sane control." He paused again. "You pass out -while fully awake--a waking delusion. It is usually labeled--though in my -opinion wrongly so--insanity." - -"I'm not afraid of that," O'Malley laughed, almost nettled. "I can manage -myself all right--have done so far, at any rate." - -It was curious how the rôles had shifted. O'Malley it was now who checked -and criticized. - -"I suggest caution," was the reply, made earnestly. "I suggest caution." - -"I should keep your warnings for mediums, clairvoyants, and the like," -said the other tartly. He was half amazed, half alarmed even while he -said it. It was the personal application that annoyed him. "They are -rather apt to go off their heads, I believe." - -Dr. Stahl rose and stood before him as though the words had given -him a cue he wanted. "From that very medium-class," he said, "my most -suggestive 'cases' have come, though not for one moment do I think of -including you with them. Yet these very 'cases' have been due one and -all to the same cause--the singular disorder I have just mentioned." - -They stared at one another a moment in silence. Stahl, whether O'Malley -liked it or no, was impressive. He gazed at the little figure in front of -him, the ragged untidy beard, the light shining on the bald skull, -wondering what was coming next and what all this bewildering confession -of unorthodox belief was leading up to. He longed to hear more about that -hinted Cosmic Life ... and how yearning might lead to its realization. - -"For any phenomena of the séance-room that may be genuine," he heard him -saying, "are produced by this fluid, detachable portion of the -personality, the very thing we have been speaking about. They are -projections of the personality--automatic projections of the -consciousness." - -And then, like a clap of thunder upon his bewildered mind, came this -man's amazing ultimatum, linking together all the points touched upon and -bringing them to a head. He repeated it emphatically. - -"And in similar fashion," concluded the calm, dispassionate voice -beside him, "there have been projections of the Earth's great -consciousness--direct expressions of her cosmic life--Cosmic Beings. And -of these distant and primitive manifestations, it is conceivable that -one or two may still--here and there in places humanity has never -stained--actually survive. This man is one of them." - -He turned on the two electric lights behind him with an admirable air of -finality. The extraordinary talk was at an end. He moved about the cabin, -putting chairs straight and toying with the papers on his desk. -Occasionally he threw a swift and searching glance at his companion, -like a man who wished to note the effect of an attack. - -For, indeed, this was the impression that his listener retained above -all else. This flood of wild, unorthodox, speculative ideas had been -poured upon him helter-skelter with a purpose. And the abruptness of -the climax was cleverly planned to induce impulsive, hot confession. - -But O'Malley found no words. He sat there in his armchair, passing -his fingers through his tumbled hair. His inner turmoil was too much -for speech or questions ... and presently, when the gong for dinner -rang noisily outside the cabin door, he rose abruptly and went out -without a single word. Stahl turned to see him go. He merely nodded -with a little smile. - -But he did not go to his stateroom. He walked the deck alone for a -time, and when he reached the dining room, Stahl, he saw, had already -come and gone. Halfway down the table, diagonally across, the face of -the big Russian looked up occasionally at him and smiled, and every -time he did so the Irishman felt a sense of mingled alarm and wonder -greater than anything he had ever known in his life before. One of the -great doors of life again had opened. The barriers of his heart broke -away. He was no longer caged and manacled within the prison of a puny -individuality. The world that so distressed him faded. The people in it -were dolls. The fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the tourists and the -rest were mere automatic puppets, all made to scale--petty scale, -amazingly dull, all exactly alike--tiny, unreal, half alive. - -The ship, meanwhile, he reflected with a joy that was passion, was -being borne over the blue sea, and this sea lay spread upon the curved -breast of the round and spinning earth. He, too, and the big Russian -lay upon her breast, held close by gravity so-called, caught closer -still, though, by something else besides. And his longings increased with -his understanding. Stahl, wittingly or unwittingly, had given them an -immense push forwards. - - - - -XI - -"In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is -awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual -exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. According to -this, consciousness can be localized in time and space." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -The offer of the cabin, meanwhile, remained open. In the solitude that -O'Malley found necessary that evening he toyed with it, though knowing -that he would never really accept. - -Like a true Celt his imagination took the main body of Stahl's words and -ensouled them with his own vivid temperament. There stirred in him this -nameless and disquieting joy that wrought for itself a Body from material -just beyond his thoughts--that region of enormous experience that ever -fringes the consciousness of imaginative men. He took the picture at its -face value, took it inside with his own thoughts, delighted in it, raised -it, of course, very soon to a still higher scale. If he criticized at all -it was with phrases like "The man's a poet after all! Why, he's got -creative imagination!" To find his own intuitions endorsed, even half -explained, by a mind of opposite type was a new experience. It emphasized -amazingly the reality of that inner world he lived in. - -This explanation of the big Russian's effect upon himself was terrific, -and that a "doctor" should have conceived it, glorious. That some -portion of a man's spirit might assume the shape of his thoughts and -project itself visibly seemed likely enough. Indeed, to him, it seemed -already a "fact," and his temperament did not linger over it. But that -other suggestion fairly savaged him with its strange grandeur. He played -lovingly with it. - -That the Earth was a living being was a conception divine in size as in -simplicity, and that the Gods and mythological figures had been -projections of her consciousness--this thought ran with a magnificent -new thunder about his mind. It was overwhelming, beautiful as Heaven -and as gracious. He saw the ancient shapes of myth and legend still alive -in some gorgeous garden of the primal world, a corner too remote for -humanity to have yet stained it with their trail of uglier life. He -understood in quite a new way, at last, those deep primitive longings -that hitherto had vainly craved their full acknowledgment. It meant that -he lay so close to the Earth that he felt her pulses as his own. The idea -stormed his belief. - -It was the Soul of the Earth herself that all these years had been -calling to him. - -And while he let his imagination play with the soaring beauty of the -idea, he remembered certain odd little facts. He marshaled them before -him in a row and questioned them: The picture he had seen with the -Captain's glasses--those speeding shapes of beauty; the new aspect of -a living Nature that the Russian's presence stirred in him; the man's -broken words as they had leaned above the sea in the dusk; the curious -passion that leaped to his eyes when certain chance words had touched -him at the dinner-table. And, lastly, the singular impression of giant -bulk he produced sometimes upon the mind, almost as though a portion of -him--this detachable portion molded by the quality of his spirit as he -felt himself to be--emerged visibly to cause it. - -Vaguely, in this way, O'Malley divined how inevitable was the apparent -isolation of these two, and why others instinctively avoided them. They -seemed by themselves in an enclosure where the parent lumberingly, and -the boy defiantly, disported themselves with a kind of lonely majesty -that forbade approach. - -And it was later that same night, as the steamer approached the Lipari -Islands, that the drive forward he had received from the doctor's words -was increased by a succession of singular occurrences. At the same time, -Stahl's deliberate and as he deemed it unjustifiable interference, helped -him to make up his mind decisively on certain other points. - -The first "occurrence" was of the same order as the "bigness"-- -extraordinarily difficult, that is, to confirm by actual measurement. - -It was ten o'clock, Stahl still apparently in his cabin by himself, and -most of the passengers below at an impromptu concert, when the Irishman, -coming down from his long solitude, caught sight of the Russian and his -boy moving about the dark after-deck with a speed and vigor that -instantly arrested his attention. The suggestion of size, and of rapidity -of movement, had never been more marked. It was as though a cloud of the -summer darkness moved beside them. - -Then, going cautiously nearer, he saw that they were neither walking -quickly, nor running, as he had first supposed, but--to his -amazement--were standing side by side upon the deck--stock still. The -appearance of motion, however, was not entirely a delusion, for he next -saw that, while standing there steady as the mast and life-boats behind -them, something emanated shadow-like from both their persons and seemed -to hover and play about them--something that was only approximately -of their own outer shapes, and very considerably larger. Now it veiled -them, now left them clear. He thought of smoke-clouds moving to and -fro about dark statues. - -So far as he could focus his sight upon them, these "shadows," without -any light to cast them, moved in distorted guise there on the deck with a -motion that was somehow rhythmical--a great movement as of dance or -gambol. - -As with the appearance of "bigness," he perceived it first out of the -corner of his eye. When he looked again he saw only two dark figures, -motionless. - -He experienced the sensation a man sometimes knows on entering a deserted -chamber in the nighttime, and is aware that the things in it have just -that instant--stopped. His arrival puts abrupt end to some busy activity -they were engaged in, which begins again the moment he goes. Chairs, -tables, cupboards, the very spots and patterns of the wall have just -flown back to their usual places whence they watch impatiently for his -departure--with the candle. - -This time, on a deck instead of in a room, O'Malley with his candle had -surprised them in the act: people, moreover, not furniture. And this -shadowy gambol, this silent Dance of the Emanations, immense yet -graceful, made him think of Winds flying, visible and uncloaked, -somewhere across long hills, or of Clouds passing to a stately, elemental -measure over the blue dancing-halls of an open sky. His imagery was -confused and gigantic, yet very splendid. Again he recalled the pictured -shapes seen with his mind's eye through the Captain's glasses. And as -he watched, he felt in himself what he called "the wild, tearing instinct -to run and join them," more even--that by rights he ought to have -been there from the beginning--dancing with them--indulging a natural and -instinctive and rhythmical movement that he had somehow forgotten. - -The passion in him was very strong, very urgent, it seems, for he took -a step forward, a call of some kind rose in his throat, and in another -second he would have been similarly cavorting upon the deck, when he -felt his arm clutched suddenly with vigor from behind. Some one seized -him and held him back. A German voice spoke with a guttural whisper -in his ear. - -Dr. Stahl, crouching and visibly excited, drew him forward a little. -"Hold up!" he heard whispered--for their India rubber soles slithered -on the wet decks. "We shall see from here, eh? See something at last?" -He still whispered. O'Malley's sudden anger died down. He could not -give vent to it without making noise, for one thing, and above all else -he wished to--see. He merely felt a vague wonder how long Stahl had -been watching. - -They crouched behind the lee of a boat. The outline of the ship rose, -distinctly visible against the starry sky, masts, spars, and cordage. A -faint gleam came through the glass below the compass-box. The wheel and -the heaps of coiled rope beyond rose and fell with the motion of the -vessel, now against the stars, now black against the phosphorescent foam -that trailed along the sea like shining lace. But the human figures, he -next saw, were now doing nothing, not even pacing the deck; they were -no longer of unusual size either. Quietly leaning over the rail, father -and son side by side, they were guiltless of anything more uncommon -than gazing into the sea. Like the furniture, they had just--stopped! - -Dr. Stahl and his companion waited motionless for several minutes in -silence. There was no sound but the dull thunder of the screws, and -a faint windy whistle the ship's speed made in the rigging. The -passengers were all below. Then, suddenly, a burst of music came up as -some one opened a saloon port-hole and as quickly closed it again--a -tenor voice singing to the piano some trivial modern song with a trashy -sentimental lilt. It was--in this setting of sea and sky--painful; -O'Malley caught himself thinking of a barrel-organ in a Greek temple. - -The same instant father and son, as though startled, moved slowly away -down the deck into the further darkness, and Dr. Stahl tightened his grip -of the Irishman's arm with a force that almost made him cry out. A gleam -of light from the opened port-hole had fallen about them before they -moved. Quite clearly it revealed them bending busily over, heads close -together, necks and shoulders thrust forward and down a little. - -"Look, by God!" whispered Stahl hoarsely as they moved off. "There's -a third!" - -He pointed. Where the two had been standing something, indeed, still -remained. Concealed hitherto by their bulk, this other figure had been -left. They saw its large, dim outline. It moved. Apparently it began -to climb over the rails, or to move in some way just outside them, -hanging half above the sea. There was a free, swaying movement about -it, not ungainly so much as big--very big. - -"Now, quick!" whispered the doctor excited, in English; "this time I find -out, sure!" - -He made a violent movement forward, a pocket electric lamp in his hand, -then turned angrily, furiously, to find that O'Malley held him fast. -There was a most unseemly struggle--for a minute, and it was caused by -the younger man's sudden passionate instinct to protect his own from -discovery, if not from actual capture and destruction. - -Stahl fought in vain, being easily overmatched; he swore vehement German -oaths under his breath; and the pocket-lamp, of course unlighted, fell -and rattled over the deck, sliding with the gentle roll of the steamer to -leeward. But O'Malley's eyes, even while he struggled, never for one -instant left the spot where the figure and the "movement" had been; and -it seemed to him that when the bulwarks dipped against the dark of the -sea, the moving thing completed its efforts and passed into the waves -with a swift leap. When the vessel righted herself again the outline of -the rail was clear. - -Dr. Stahl, he then saw, had picked up the lamp and was bending over -some mark upon the deck, examining a wide splash of wet upon which -he directed the electric flash. The sense of revived antagonism between -the men for the moment was strong, too strong for speech. O'Malley -feeling half ashamed, yet realized that his action had been instinctive, -and that another time he would do just the same. He would fight to the -death any too close inspection, since such inspection included also -now--himself. - -The doctor presently looked up. His eyes shone keenly in the gleam -of the lamp, but he was no longer agitated. - -"There is too much water," he said calmly, as though diagnosing a case; -"too much to permit of definite traces." He glanced round, flashing the -beam about the decks. The other two had disappeared. They were alone. "It -was outside the rail all the time, you see," he added, "and never quite -reached the decks." He stooped down and examined the splash once more. It -looked as though a wave had topped the scuppers and left a running line -of foam and water. "Nothing to indicate its exact nature," he said in a -whisper that conveyed something between uneasiness and awe, again turning -the light sharply in every direction and peering about him. "It came to -them--er--from the sea, though; it came from the sea right enough. That, -at least, is positive." And in his manner was perhaps just a touch to -indicate relief. - -"And it returned into the sea," exclaimed O'Malley triumphantly. It -was as though he related his own escape. - -The two men were now standing upright, facing one another. Dr. Stahl, -betraying no sign of resentment, looked him steadily in the eye. He put -the lamp back into his pocket. When he spoke at length in the darkness, -the words were not precisely what the Irishman had expected. Under them -his own vexation and excitement faded instantly. He felt almost sheepish -when he remembered his violence. - -"I forgive your behavior, of course," Stahl said, "for it is -consistent--splendidly consistent--with my theory of you; and of value, -therefore. I only now urge you again"--he moved closer, speaking almost -solemnly--"to accept the offer of a berth in my cabin. Take it, my -friend, take it--tonight." - -"Because you wish to watch me at close quarters." - -"No," was the reply, and there was sympathy in the voice, "but because -you are in danger--especially in sleep." - -There was a moment's pause before O'Malley said anything. - -"It is kind of you, Dr. Stahl, very kind," he answered slowly, and this -time with grave politeness; "but I am not afraid, and I see no reason to -make the change. And as it's now late," he added somewhat abruptly, -almost as though he feared he might be persuaded to alter his mind, "I -will say good-night and turn in--if you will forgive me--at once." - -Dr. Stahl said no further word. He watched him, the other was aware, as -he moved down the deck toward the saloon staircase, and then turned once -more with his lamp to stoop over the splashed portion of the boards. He -examined the place apparently for a long time. - -But O'Malley, as he went slowly down the hot and stuffy stairs, realized -with a wild and rushing tumult of joy that the "third" he had seen was of -a splendor surpassing the little figures of men, and that something deep -within his own soul was most gloriously akin with it. A link with the -Universe had been subconsciously established, tightened up, adjusted. -From all this living Nature breathing about him in the night, a message -had reached the strangers and himself--a message shaped in beauty and in -power. Nature had become at last aware of his presence close against her -ancient face. Henceforth would every sight of Beauty take him direct to -the place where Beauty comes from. No middleman, no Art was necessary. -The gates were opening. Already he had caught a glimpse. - - - - -XII - -In the stateroom he found, without surprise somehow, that his new -companions had already retired for the night. The curtain of the upper -berth was drawn, and on the sofa-bed below the opened port-hole the -boy already slept. Standing a moment in the little room with these two -close, he felt that he had come into a new existence almost. Deep within -him this sense of new life thrilled and glowed. He was shaking a little -all over, not with the mere tremor of excitement, however, but with the -tide of a vast and rising exultation he could scarce contain. For his -normal self was too small to hold it. It demanded expansion, and the -expansion it claimed had already begun. The boundaries of his personality -were enormously extending. - -In words this change escaped him wholly. He only knew that something -in him of an old unrest lay down at length and slept. Less acute grew -those pangs of starvation his life had ever felt--the ache of that -inappeasable hunger for the beauty and innocence of some primal state -before thick human crowds had stained the world with all their strife -and clamor. The glory of it burned white within him. - -And the way he described it to himself was significant of its true -nature. For it vans the analogy of childhood. The passion of a boy's -longing swept over him. He knew again the feelings of those early days -when-- - -A boy's will is the wind's will, -And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, - ---when all the world smells sweet and golden as a summer's day, and a -village street is endless as the sky.... - -This it was, raised to its highest power, that dropped a hint of -explanation into that queer heart of his wherein had ever burned the -strange desire for primitive existence. It was the Call, though, not of -his own youth alone, but of the youth of the world. A mood of the Earth's -consciousness--some giant expression of her cosmic emotion--caught -him. And it was the big Russian who acted as channel and interpreter. - -Before getting into bed, he drew aside the little red curtain that -screened his companion, and peered cautiously through the narrow slit. -The big occupant of the bunk also slept, his mane-like hair spread about -him over the pillow, and on his great, placid face a look of peace that -seemed to deepen with every day the steamer neared her destination. -O'Malley gazed for a full minute and more. Then the sleeper felt the -gaze, for suddenly the eyelids quivered, moved, and lifted. The large -brown eyes peered straight into his own. The Irishman, unable to turn -away in time, stood fixed and staring in return. The gentleness and power -of the look passed straight down into his heart, filled him to the brim -with things their owner knew, and confirmed that appeasement of his -own hunger, already begun. - -"I tried--to prevent the--interference," he stammered in a low voice. -"I held him back. You saw me?" - -A huge hand stretched forth from the bunk to stop him. Impulsively he -seized it with both his own. At the first contact he started--a little -frightened. It felt so wonderful, so mighty. Thus might a gust of wind -or a billow of the sea have thrust against him. - -"A messenger--came," said the man with that laborious slow utterance, and -deep as thunder, "from--the--sea." - -"From--the--sea, yes," repeated O'Malley beneath his breath, yet -conscious rather that he wanted to shout and sing it. He saw the big -man smile. His own small hands were crushed in the grasp of power. -"I--understand," he added in a whisper. He found himself speaking with -a similar clogged utterance. Somehow, it seemed, the language they -ought to have used was either forgotten or unborn. Yet whereas his friend -was inarticulate perhaps, he himself was--dumb. These little modern -words were all wrong and inadequate. Modern speech could only deal -with modern smaller things. - -The giant half rose in his bed, as though at first to leap forward and -away from it. He tightened an instant the grasp upon his companion's -hands, then suddenly released them and pointed across the cabin. That -smile of happiness spread upon his face. O'Malley turned. There the -boy lay, deeply slumbering, the clothes flung back so that the air from -the port-hole played over the bare neck and chest; upon his face, too, -shone the look of peace and rest his father wore, the hunted expression -all gone, as though the spirit had escaped in sleep. The parent pointed, -first to the boy, then to himself, then to this new friend standing -beside his bed. The gesture including the three of them was of singular -authority--invitation, welcome, and command lay in it. More--in some -incomprehensible way it was majestic. O'Malley's thought flashed upon -him the limb of some great oak tree, swaying in the wind. - -Next, placing a finger on his lips, his eyes once more swept O'Malley -and the boy, and he turned again into the little bunk that so difficultly -held him, and lay back. The hair flowed down and mingled with the beard, -over pillow and neck, almost to the shoulders. And something that was -enormous and magnificent lay back with him, carrying with it again that -sudden atmosphere of greater bulk. With a deep sound in his throat that -was certainly no actual word and yet more expressive than any speech, he -turned hugely over among the little, scanty sheets, drew the curtain -again before his face, and returned into the world of--sleep. - - - - -XIII - -"It may happen that the earthly body falls asleep in one direction deeply -enough to allow it in others to awaken far beyond its usual limits, and -yet not so deeply and completely as to awaken no more. Or, to the -subjective vision there comes a flash so unusually vivid as to bring to -the earthly sense an impression rising above the threshold from an -otherwise inaccessible distance. Here begin the wonders of clairvoyance, -of presentiments, and premonitions in dreams;--pure fables, if the future -body and the future life are fables; otherwise signs of the one and -predictions of the other; but what has signs exists, and what has -prophecies will come." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -But O'Malley rolled into his own berth below without undressing, sleep -far from his eyes. He had heard the Gates of ivory and horn swing softly -upon their opening hinges, and the glimpse he caught of the garden beyond -made any question of slumber impossible. Again he saw those shapes of -cloud and wind flying over the long hills, while the name that should -describe them ran, hauntingly splendid, along the mysterious passages of -his being, though never coming quite to the surface for capture. - -Perhaps, too, he was glad that the revelation was only partial. The -size of the vision thus invoked awed him a little, so that he lay there -half wondering at the complete surrender he had made to this guidance -of another soul. - -Stahl's warnings ran far away and laughed. The idea even came to him that -Stahl was playing with him: that his portentous words had been carefully -chosen for their heightening effect upon his own imagination so that the -doctor might study an uncommon and extreme "case." The notion passed -through him merely, without lingering. - -In any event it was idle to put the brakes on now. He was internally -committed and must go wherever it might lead. And the thought rejoiced -him. He had climbed upon a pendulum that swung into an immense past; but -its return swing would bring him safely back. It was rushing now into -that nameless place of freedom that the primitive portion of his being -had hitherto sought in vain, and a fundamental, starved craving of his -life would know satisfaction at last. Already life had grown all glorious -without. It was not steel engines but a speeding sense of beauty that -drove the ship over the sea with feet of winged blue darkness. The stars -fled with them across the sky, dropping golden leashes to draw him faster -and faster forwards--yet within--to the dim days when this old world yet -was young. He took his fire of youth and spread it, as it were, all over -life till it covered the entire world, far, far away. Then he stepped -back into it, and the world herself, he found, stepped with him. - -He lay listening to the noises of the ship, the thump and bumble of -the engines, the distant droning of the screws under water. From time -to time stewards moved down the corridor outside, and the footsteps -of some late passenger still paced the decks overhead. He heard voices, -too, and occasionally the clattering of doors. Once or twice he fancied -some one moved stealthily to the cabin door and lingered there, but the -matter never drew him to investigate, for the sound each time resolved -itself naturally into the music of the ship's noises. - -And everything, meanwhile, heard or thought, fed the central concern -upon which his mind was busy. These superficial sounds, for instance, -had nothing to do with the real business of the ship; _that_ lay below -with the buried engines and the invisible screws that worked like demons -to bring her into port. And with himself and his slumbering companions -the case was similar. Their respective power-stations, working in the -subconscious, had urged them toward one another inevitably. How long, he -wondered, had the spirit of that lonely, alien "being" flashed messages -into the void that reached no receiving-station tuned to their -acceptance? Their accumulated power was great, the currents they -generated immense. He knew. For had they not charged full into himself -the instant he came on board, bringing an intimacy that was immediate -and full-fledged? - -The untamed longings that always tore him when he felt the great winds, -moved through forests, or found himself in desolate places, were at last -on the high road to satisfaction--to some "state" where all that they -represented would be explained and fulfilled. And whether such "state" -should prove to be upon the solid surface of the earth, objective; or in -the fluid regions of his inner being, subjective--was of no account -whatever. It would be true. The great figure that filled the berth above -him, now deeply slumbering, had in him subterraneans that gave access -not only to Greece, but far beyond that haunted land, to a state of -existence symbolized in the legends of the early world by Eden and the -Golden Age.... - -"You are in danger," that wise old speculative doctor had whispered, -"and especially in sleep!" But he did not sleep. He lay there thinking, -thinking, thinking, a rising exaltation of desire paving busily the path -along which eventually he might escape. - -As the night advanced and the lesser noises retired, leaving only the -deep sound of the steamer talking to the sea, he became aware, too, that -a change, at first imperceptibly, then swiftly, was stealing over the -cabin. It came with a riot of silent Beauty. At a loss to describe it -with precision, he nevertheless divined that it proceeded from the -sleeping figure overhead and in a lesser pleasure, too, from the boy upon -the sofa opposite. It emanated from these two, he felt, in proportion as -their bodies passed into deeper and deeper slumber, as though what -occurred sometimes upon the decks by an act of direct volition, took -place now automatically and with a fuller measure of release. Their -spirits, free of that other world in sleep, were alert and potently -discharging. Unconsciously, their vital, underlying essence escaped into -activity. - -Growing about his own person, next, it softly folded him in, casing -his inner being with glory and this crowding sense of beauty. This -increased manifestation of psychic activity reached down into the very -core of himself, like invisible fingers playing upon an instrument. -Notes--powers--in his soul, hitherto silent because none had known how -to sound them, rose singing to the surface. For it seemed at length that -forms of some intenser life, busily operating, moved to and fro within -the painted white walls of that little cabin, working subtly to bring -about a transformation of himself. A singular change was fast and -cleverly at work in his own being. It was, he puts it, a silent and -irresistible Evocation. - -No one of his senses was directly affected; certainly he neither saw, -felt, nor heard anything in the usual acceptance of the terms; but any -instant surely, it seemed that all his senses must awake and report to -the mind things that were splendid beyond the common order. In the -crudest aspect of it, he felt as though he extended and grew large--that -he dreaded to see himself in the mirror lest he might witness an external -appearance of bigness which corresponded to this interior expansion. - -For a long time he lay unresisting, letting the currents of this -subjective tempest play through and round him. Entrancing sensations of -beauty and rapture came with it. The outer world seemed remote and -trivial, the passengers unreal--the priest, the voluble merchant, the -jovial Captain, all spun like dead things at the periphery of life; -whereas he was moving toward the Center. Stahl--! the thought of Dr. -Stahl, alone intruded with a certain unwelcome air of hindrance, almost -as though he sought to end it, or call a halt. But Stahl, too, himself -presently spun off like a leaf before the rising wind... - -And then it was that an external sense was tapped, and he did hear -something. From the berth overhead came a faint sound that made his -heart stand still, though not with common fear. He listened intently. -The blood tearing through his ears at first concealed its actual nature. -It was far, far away; then came closer, as a waft of wind brings near and -carries off again a sound of bells in mountains. It fled over vales and -hills, to return a moment after with suddenness--a little louder, a -little nearer. And with it came an increase of this sense of beauty that -stretched his heart, as it were, to some deep ancient scale of joy once -known, but long forgotten... - -Across the cabin, the boy moved uneasily in his sleep. - -"Oh, that I could be with him where he now is!" he cried, "in that -place of eternal youth and eternal companionship!" The cry was -instinctive utterly; his whole being, condensed in the single yearning, -pressed through it--drove behind it. The place, the companionship, the -youth--all, he knew, would prove in some strange way enormous, vast, -ultimately satisfying forever and ever, far out of this little modern -world that imprisoned him... - -Again, most unwelcome and unexplained, the face of Stahl flashed -suddenly before him to hinder and interrupt. He banished it with -an effort, for it brought a smaller comprehension that somehow -involved--fear. - -"Curse the man!" flamed in anger across his world of beauty, and the -violence of the contrast broke something in his mind like a globe of -colored glass that had focused the exquisiteness of the vision.... The -sound continued as before, but its power of evocation lessened. The -thought of Stahl--Stahl in his denying aspect--dimmed it. - -Glancing up at the frosted electric light, O'Malley felt vaguely that -if he turned it out he would somehow yet see better, hear better, -understand more; and it was this practical consideration, introduced -indirectly by the thought of Stahl, that made him realize now for the -first time that he actually and definitely was--afraid. For, to leave his -bunk with its comparative, protective dark, and step into the middle of -a cabin he knew to be alive with a seethe of invisible charging forces, -made him realize that distinct effort was necessary--effort of will. If -he yielded he would be caught up and away, swept from his known moorings, -borne through high space out of himself. And Stahl with his cowardly -warnings and belittlements set fear, thus, in the place of free -acceptance. Otherwise he might even have come to these long blue hills -where danced and raced the giant shapes of cloud, singing while.... - -"Singing!" Ah! There was the clue! The sound he heard was singing--faint, -low singing; close beside him too. It was the big man, singing softly in -his sleep. - -This ordinary explanation of the "wonder-sound" brought him down to -earth, and so to a more normal feeling of security again. He stepped -cautiously from the bed, careful not to let the rings rattle on the rod -of brass, and slowly raised himself upright. And then, through a slit of -the curtain, he--saw. The lips of the big sleeper moved gently, the beard -rising and falling very slightly with them, and this murmur that he had -thought so far away, came out and sang deliriously and faint before his -very face. It most curiously--flowed. Easily, naturally, almost -automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once -understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant -hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the -singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly -over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it -swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In -it, too, there lay some accent of a secret, dim sublimity, deeper far -than any other human sound could touch. The terror of a great freedom -caught him, a freedom most awfully remote from the smaller personal -existence he knew Today ... for it suggested, with awe and wonder, the -kind of primitive utterance that was before speech or the development of -language; when emotions were still too vague and mighty to be caught by -little words, but when beings, close to the heart of their great Mother, -expressed the feelings, enormous and uncomplex, of the greater life they -shared as portions of her--projections of the Earth herself. - -With a crash in his brain, O'Malley stopped. These thoughts, he suddenly -realized, were not his own. An attack of unwonted sensations stung and -scattered his mind with a rush of giant splendor that threatened to -overwhelm him. He was in the very act of being carried away; his sense of -personal identity menaced; surrender well-nigh already complete. - -Another moment, especially if those eyes opened and caught him, and he -would be beyond recall in the region of these other two. The narrow space -of that little cabin was charged already to the brim, filled with some -overpowering loveliness of wild and simple things, the beauty of stars -and winds and flowers, the terror of seas and mountains; strange radiant -forms of gods and heroes, nymphs, fauns and satyrs; the fierce sunshine -of some Golden Age unspoiled, of a stainless region now long forgotten -and denied--that world of splendor his heart had ever craved in vain, and -beside which the life of Today faded to a wretched dream. - -It was the _Urwelt_ calling.... - -With a violent internal effort, he tore his gaze from those eyelids that -fortunately opened not. At the same moment, though he did not hear them, -steps came close in the corridor, and there was a rattling of the knob. -Behind him, a movement from the berth below the port-hole warned him that -he was but just in time. The Vision he was afraid as yet to acknowledge -drew with such awful speed toward the climax. - -Quickly he turned away, lifted the hook of the cabin door, and passed -into the passage, strangely faint. A great commotion followed him out: -father and son both, it seemed, suddenly upon their feet. And at the -same time the sound of "singing" rolled into the body of a great hushed -chorus, as it were of galloping winds that filled big valleys far away -with a gust of splendor, faintly roaring in some incredible distance -where no cities were, nor habitations of men; with a freedom, too, that -was majestic and sublime. Oh! the terrific gait of that life in an open -world!--Golden to the winds!--uncrowded!--The cosmic life--! - -O'Malley shivered as he heard. For an instant, the true grain of his -inner life, picked out in flame and silver, flashed clear. Almost--he -knew himself caught back. - -And there, in the dimly-lighted corridor, against the paneling of the -cabin wall, crouched Dr. Stahl--listening. The pain of the contrast was -vivid beyond words. It seemed as if he had passed from the thunder of -organs to hear the rattling of tin cans. Instantly he understood the -force that all along had held him back: the positive, denying aspect of -this man's mind--afraid. - -"_You!_" he exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are _you_ doing here?" -He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on -tiptoe to his side. He moved hurriedly. - -"Come away," he said vehemently under his breath. "Come with me to my -cabin--to the decks--anywhere away from this--before it's too late." - -And the Irishman then realized that his face was white and that his -voice shook. The hand that gripped him by the arm shook too. - -They went quickly along the deserted corridor and up the stairs, -O'Malley making no resistance, moving in a kind of dream. He has a -fleeting recollection of an odor, sweet and slightly pungent as of -horses, in his nostrils. The wind of the open decks revived him, and he -saw to his amazement that the East was brightening. In that cabin, then, -hours had been compressed into minutes. - -The steamer had already slipped by the Straits of Messina. To the right -he saw the cones of Etna, shadowy in the sky, calling across the dawn to -Stromboli their smoking brother of the Lipari. To the left over the blue -Ionian Sea the lights of a cloudless sunrise rose softly above the world. - -And the hour of enchantment seized and shook him anew. Somewhere, across -those faint blue waves, lay the things that he so passionately sought. It -was the very essence of their loveliness and wonder that had charged down -between the walls of that stuffy cabin below. For every morning still, at -dawn, the tired world knows again the splendors of her youth; and the -Irishman, shuddering a little in his sacred joy, felt that he must burst -his bonds and fly to join the sunrise and the sea. The yearning, he was -aware, had now increased a thousandfold: its fulfillment was merely -delayed. - -He passed along the decks all slippery with dew into Dr. Stahl's cabin, -and flung himself on the broad sofa to sleep. Sleep, too, came at once; -he was profoundly exhausted; and, while he slept, Stahl watched over him, -covering his body with a thick blanket. - - - - -XIV - -"It is a lovely imagination responding to the deepest desires, instincts, -cravings of spiritual man, that spiritual rapture should find an echo in -the material world; that in mental communion with God we should find -sensible communion with nature; and that, when the faithful rejoice -together, bird and beast, hill and forest, should be not felt only, but -seen to rejoice along with them. It is not the truth; between us and our -environment, whatever links there are, this link is wanting. But the -yearning for it, the passion which made Wordsworth cry out for something, -even were it the imagination of a pagan which would make him 'less -forlorn,' is natural to man; and simplicity leaps at the lovely fiction -of a response. Just here is the opportunity for such alliances between -spiritualism and superstition as are the daily despair of seekers -after truth." - ---Dr. VERRALL - - -And though he slept for hours the doctor never once left his side, but -sat there with pencil and notebook, striving to catch, yet in vain, some -accurate record of the strange fragmentary words that fell from his lips -at intervals. His own face was aflame with an interest that amounted to -excitement. The very hand that held the pencil trembled. One would have -said that thus somewhat a man might behave who found himself faced with -confirmation of some vast, speculative theory his mind had played with -hitherto from a distance only. - -Toward noon the Irishman awoke. The steamer, still loading oranges and -sacks of sulfur in the Catania harbor, was dusty and noisy. Most of the -passengers were ashore, hurrying with guidebooks and field-glasses to see -the statue of the dead Bellini or watch the lava flow. A blazing, -suffocating heat lay over the oily sea, and the summit of the volcano, -with its tiny, ever-changing puff of smoke, soared through blue haze. - -To Stahl's remark, "You've slept eight hours," he replied, "But I feel as -though I'd slept eight centuries away." He took the coffee and rolls -provided, and then smoked. The doctor lit a cigar. The red curtains over -the port-holes shut out the fierce sun, leaving the cabin cool and dim. -The shouting of the lightermen and officers mingled with the roar and -scuttle of the donkey-engine. And O'Malley knew perfectly well that while -the other moved about carelessly, playing with books and papers on his -desk, he was all the time keeping him under close observation. - -"Yes," he continued, half to himself, "I feel as if I'd fallen asleep in -one world and awakened into another where life is trivial and -insignificant, where men work like devils for things of no value in order -to accumulate them in great ugly houses; always collecting and -collecting, like mad children, possessions that they never really -possess--things external to themselves, valueless and unreal--" - -Dr. Stahl came up quietly and sat down beside him. He spoke gently, -his manner kind and grave rather. He put a hand upon his shoulder. - -"But, my dear boy," he said, the critical mood all melted away, "do -not let yourself go too completely. That is vicious thinking, believe me. -All details are important--here and now--spiritually important, if you -prefer the term. The symbols change with the ages, that is all." Then, as -the other did not reply, he added: "Keep yourself well in hand. Your -experience is of extraordinary interest--may even be of value, to -yourself as well as to--er--others. And what happened to you last night -is worthy of record--if you can use it without surrendering your soul to -it altogether. Perhaps, later, you will feel able to speak of it--to tell -me in detail a little--?" - -His keen desire to know more evidently fought with his desire to protect, -to heal, possibly even to prevent. - -"If I felt sure that your control were sufficient, I could tell you in -return some results of my own study of--certain cases in the hospitals, -you see, that might throw light upon--upon your own curious experience." - -O'Malley turned with such abruptness that the cigar ash fell down -over his clothes. The bait was strong, but the man's sympathy was not -sufficiently of a piece, he felt, to win his entire confidence. - -"I cannot discuss beliefs," he said shortly, "in the speculative way you -do. They are too real. A man doesn't argue about his love, does he?" He -spoke passionately. "Today everybody argues, discusses, speculates: no -one believes. If you had your way, you'd take away my beliefs and put in -their place some wretched little formula of science that the next -generation will prove all wrong again. It's like the N rays one of you -discovered: they never really existed at all." He laughed. Then his -flushed face turned grave again. "Beliefs are deeper than discoveries. -They are eternal." - -Stahl looked at him a moment with admiration. He moved across the cabin -toward his desk. - -"I am more with you than perhaps you understand," he said quietly, yet -without too obviously humoring him. "I am more--divided, that's all." - -"Modern!" exclaimed the other, noticing the ashes on his coat for -the first time and brushing them off impatiently. "Everything in you -expresses itself in terms of matter, forgetting that matter being in -continual state of flux is the least real of all things--" - -"Our training has been different," observed Stahl simply, interrupting -him. "I use another phraseology. Fundamentally, we are not so far -apart as you think. Our conversation of yesterday proves it, if you have -not forgotten. It is people like yourself who supply the material that -teaches people like me--helps me to advance--to speculate, though -you dislike the term." - -The Irishman was mollified, though for some time he continued in the same -strain. And the doctor let him talk, realizing that his emotion needed -the relief of this safety-valve. He used words loosely, but Stahl did not -check him; it was merely that the effort to express himself--this self -that could believe so much--found difficulty in doing so coherently in -modern language. He went very far. For the fact that while Stahl -criticized and denied, he yet understood, was a strong incentive -to talk. O'Malley plunged repeatedly over his depth, and each time the -doctor helped him in to shore. - -"Perhaps," said Stahl at length in a pause, "the greatest difference -between us is merely that whereas you jump headlong, ignoring details -by the way, I climb slowly, counting the steps and making them secure. -I deny at first because if the steps survive such denial, I know that -they are permanent. I build scaffolding. You fly." - -"Flight is quicker," put in the Irishman. - -"It is for the few," was the reply; "scaffolding is for all." - -"You spoke a few days ago of strange things," O'Malley said presently -with abruptness, "and spoke seriously too. Tell me more about that, if -you will." He sought to lead the talk away from himself, since he did -not intend to be fully drawn. "You said something about the theory that -the Earth is alive, a living being, and that the early legendary forms of -life may have been emanations--projections of herself--detached portions -of her consciousness--or something of the sort. Tell me about that -theory. Can there be really men who are thus children of the earth, -fruit of pure passion--Cosmic Beings as you hinted? It interests me -deeply." - -Dr. Stahl appeared to hesitate. - -"It is not new to me, of course," pursued the other, "but I should like -to know more." - -Stahl still seemed irresolute. "It is true," he replied at length slowly, -"that in an unguarded moment I let drop certain observations. It is -better you should consider them unsaid perhaps: forget them." - -"And why, pray?" - -The answer was well calculated to whet his appetite. - -"Because," answered the doctor, bending over to him as he crossed over to -his side, "they are dangerous thoughts to play with, dangerous to the -interests of humanity in its present state today, unsettling to the soul, -shaking the foundations of sane consciousness." He looked hard at him. -"Your own mind," he added softly, "appears to me to be already on their -track. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have in you that kind of -very passionate desire--of yearning--which might reconstruct them and -make them come true--for yourself--if you get out." - -O'Malley, his eyes shining, looked up into his face. - -"'Reconstruct--make them come true--if I get out'!" he repeated -stammeringly, fearful that if he appeared too eager the other would stop. -"You mean, of course, that this Double in me would escape and build -its own heaven?" - -Stahl nodded darkly. "Driven forth by your intense desire." After a -pause he added, "The process already begun in you would complete -itself." - -Ah! So obviously what the doctor wanted was a description of his -sensations in that haunted cabin. - -"Temporarily?" asked the Irishman under his breath. - -The other did not answer for a moment. O'Malley repeated the question. - -"Temporarily," said Stahl, turning away again toward his desk, -"unless--the yearning were too strong." - -"In which case--?" - -"Permanently. For it would draw the entire personality with it...." - -"The soul?" - -Stahl was bending over his books and papers. The answer was barely -audible. - -"Death," was the whispered word that floated across the heavy air of -that little sun-baked cabin. - -The word if spoken at all was so softly spoken that the Irishman -scarcely knew whether he actually heard it, or whether it was uttered by -his own thought. He only realized--catching some vivid current from -the other man's mind--that this separation of a vital portion of himself -that Stahl hinted at might involve a kind of nameless inner catastrophe -which should mean the loss of his personality as it existed today--an -idea, however, that held no terror for him if it meant at the same time -the recovery of what he so passionately sought. - -And another intuition flashed upon its heels--namely, that this -extraordinary doctor spoke of something he knew as a certainty; that -his amazing belief, though paraded as theory, was to him more than -theory. Had he himself undergone some experience that he dared not -speak of, and were his words based upon a personal experience instead -of, as he pretended, merely upon the observation of others? Was this a -result of his study of the big man two years ago? Was this the true -explanation of his being no longer an assistant at the H--hospital, -but only a ship's doctor? Had this "modern" man, after all, a flaming -volcano of ancient and splendid belief in him, akin to what was in -himself, yet ever fighting it? - -Thoughts raced and thundered through his mind as he watched him across -the cigar smoke. The rattling of that donkey-engine, the shouts of the -lightermen, the thuds of the sulfur-sacks--how ridiculous they all -sounded, the clatter of a futile, meaningless existence where men -gathered--rubbish, for mere bodies that lived amid dust a few years, -then returned to dust forever. - -He sprang from his sofa and crossed over to the doctor's side. Stahl -was still bending over a littered desk. - -"You, too," he cried, and though trying to say it loud, his voice could -only whisper, "you, too, must have the _Urmensch_ in your heart and -blood, for how else, by my soul, could you _know_ it all? Tell me, -doctor, tell me!" And he was on the very verge of adding, "Join us! Come -and join us!" when the little German turned his bald head slowly round -and fixed upon the excited Irishman such a cool and quenching stare that -instantly he felt himself convicted of foolishness, almost of -impertinence. - -He dropped backwards into an armchair, and the doctor at the same moment -let himself down upon the revolving stool that was nailed to the floor in -front of the desk. His hands smoothed out papers. Then he leaned forward, -still holding his companion's eyes with that steady stare which forbade -familiarity. - -"My friend," he said quietly in German, "you asked me just now to tell -you of the theory--Fechner's theory--that the Earth is a living, -conscious Being. If you care to listen, I will do so. We have time." He -glanced round at the shady cabin, took down a book from the shelf -before him, puffed his black cigar and began to read. - -"It is from one of your own people--William James; what you call a -'Hibbert Lecture' at Manchester College. It gives you an idea, at least, -of what Fechner saw. It is better than my own words." - -So Stahl, in his turn, refused to be "drawn." O'Malley, as soon as he -recovered from the abruptness of the change from that other conversation, -gave all his attention. The uneasy feeling that he was being played -with, coaxed as a specimen to the best possible point for the microscope, -passed away as the splendor of the vast and beautiful conception dawned -upon him, and shaped those nameless yearnings of his life in glowing -language. - - - - -XV - - -The shadows of the September afternoon were lengthening toward us from -the Round Pond by the time O'Malley reached this stage of his curious and -fascinating story. It was chilly under the trees, and the "wupsey-up, -wupsey-down" babies, as he termed them, had long since gone in to their -teas, or whatever it is that London babies take at six o'clock. - -We strolled home together, and he welcomed the idea of sharing a dinner -we should cook ourselves in the tiny Knightsbridge flat. "Stewpot -evenings," he called these occasions. They reminded us of camping trips -together, although it must be confessed that in the cage-like room the -"stew" never tasted quite as it did beside running water on the skirts of -the forest when the dews were gathering on the little gleaming tent, and -the wood-smoke mingled with the scents of earth and leaves. - -Passing that grotesque erection opposite the Albert Hall, gaudy in the -last touch of sunset, I saw him shudder. The spell of the ship and sea -and the blazing Sicilian sunshine lay still upon us, Etna's cones -towering beyond those gilded spikes of the tawdry Memorial. I stole a -glance at my companion. His light blue eyes shone, but with the -reflection of another sunset--the sunset of forgotten, ancient, far-off -scenes when the world was young. - -His personality held something of magic in that silent stroll homewards, -for no word fell from either one of us to break its charm. The untidy -hair escaped from beneath the broad-brimmed old hat, and his faded coat -of grey flannel seemed touched with the shadows that the dusk brings -beneath wild-olive trees. I noticed the set of his ears, and how the -upper points of them ran so sharply into the hair. His walk was springy, -light, very quiet, suggesting that he moved on open turf where a sudden -running jump would land him, not into a motor-bus, but into a mossy -covert where ferns grew. There was a certain fling of the shoulders that -had an air of rejecting streets and houses. Some fancy, wild and sweet, -caught me of a faun passing down through underbrush of woodland glades to -drink at a forest pool; and, chance giving back to me a little verse of -Alice Corbin's, I turned and murmured it while watching him: - -What dim Arcadian pastures - Have I known, -That suddenly, out of nothing, - A wind is blown, -Lifting a veil and a darkness, - Showing a purple sea-- -And under your hair, the faun's eyes - Look out on me? - -It was, of course, that whereas his body marched along Hill Street and -through Montpelier Square, his thoughts and spirit flitted through the -haunted, old-time garden he forever craved. I thought of the morrow--of -my desk in the Life Insurance Office, of the clerks with oiled hair -brushed back from the forehead, all exactly alike, trousers neatly turned -up to show fancy colored socks from bargain sales, their pockets full of -cheap cigarettes, their minds busy with painted actresses and the names -of horses! A Life Insurance Office! All London paying yearly sums to -protect themselves against--against the most interesting moment of -life. Premiums upon escape and freedom! - -Again, it was the spell of my companion's personality that turned all -this paraphernalia of the busy, modern existence into the counters in -some grotesque and rather sordid game. Tomorrow, of course, it would -all turn real and earnest again, O'Malley's story a mere poetic fancy. -But for the moment I lived it with him, and found it magnificent. - -And the talk we had that evening when the stew-pot was empty and we were -smoking on the narrow-ledged roof of the prison-house--for he always -begged for open air, and with cushions we often sat beneath the stars and -against the grimy chimney-pots--that talk I shall never forget. Life -became constructed all anew. The power of the greatest fairy tale this -world can ever know lay about me, raised to its highest expression. I -caught at least some touch of reality--of awful reality--in the idea that -this splendid globe whereon we perched like insects peeping timidly from -tiny cells, might be the body of a glorious Being--the mighty frame to -which some immense Collective Consciousness, vaster than that of men, and -wholly different in kind, might be attached. - -In the story, as I found it later in the dusty little Paddington room, -O'Malley reported, somewhat heavily, it seemed to me, the excerpts -chosen by Dr. Stahl. As an imaginative essay, they were interesting, of -course, and vitally suggestive, but in a tale of adventure such as this -they overweight the barque of fancy. Yet, in order to appreciate what -followed, it seems necessary for the mind to steep itself in something of -his ideas. The reader who dreads to think, and likes his imagination to -soar unsupported, may perhaps dispense with the balance of this section; -but to be faithful to the scaffolding whereon this Irishman built his -amazing dream, I must attempt as best I can some précis of that -conversation. - - - - -XVI - -"Every fragment of visible Nature might, as far as is known, serve as -part in some organism unlike our bodies.... As to that which can, and -that which cannot, play the part of an organism, we know very little. A -sameness greater or less with our own bodies is the basis from which we -conclude to other bodies and souls.... A certain likeness of outward -form, and again some amount of similarity in action, are what we stand on -when we argue to psychical life. But our failure, on the other side, to -discover these symptoms is no sufficient warrant for positive denial. It -is natural in this connection to refer to Fechner's vigorous advocacy." - ---F.H. BRADLEY, _Appearance and Reality_ - - -It was with an innate resistance--at least a stubborn prejudice--that -I heard him begin. The earth, of course, was but a bubble of dried fire, -a huge round clod, dead as mutton. How could it be, in any permissible -sense of the word--alive? - -Then, gradually, as he talked there among the chimney-pots of old smoky -London, there stole over me this new and disquieting sense of reality--a -strange, vast splendor, too mighty to lie in the mind with comfort. -Laughter fled away, ashamed. A new beauty, as of some amazing dawn, -flashed and broke upon the world. The autumn sky overhead, thick-sown -with its myriad stars, came down close, sifting gold and fire about my -life's dull ways. That desk in the Insurance Office of Cornhill gleamed -beyond as an altar or a possible throne. - -The glory of Fechner's immense speculation flamed about us both, majestic -yet divinely simple. Only a dim suggestion of it, of course, lay caught -in the words the Irishman used--words, as I found later, that were a -mixture of Professor James and Dr. Stahl, flavored strongly with Terence -O'Malley--but a suggestion potent enough to have haunted me ever since -and to have instilled meanings of stupendous divinity into all the -commonest things of daily existence. Mountains, seas, wide landscapes, -forests,--all I see now with emotions of wonder, delight, and awe unknown -to me before. Flowers, rain, wind, even a London fog, have come to hold -new meanings. - -I never realized before that the mere _size_ of our old planet could -have hindered the perception of so fair a vision, or her mere -quantitative bulk have killed automatically in the mind the possible idea -of her being in some sense living. A microbe, endowed with our powers of -consciousness, might similarly deny life to the body of the elephant on -which it rode; or some wee arguing atom, endowed with mind and senses, -persuade itself that the monster upon whose flesh it dwelt were similarly -a "heavenly body" of dead, inert matter; the bulk of the "world" that -carried them obstructing their perception of its Life. - -And Fechner, as it seems, was no mere dreamer, playing with a huge -poetical conception. Professor of Physics in Leipsic University, he found -time amid voluminous labors in chemistry to study electrical science -with the result that his measurements in galvanism are classic to this -day. His philosophical work was more than considerable. "A book on the -atomic theory, classic also; four elaborate mathematical and experimental -volumes on what he called psychophysics (many persons consider Fechner to -have practically founded scientific psychology in the first of these -books); a volume on organic evolution, and two works on experimental -æsthetics, in which again Fechner is thought by some judges to have laid -the foundations of a new science," are among his other performances.... -"All Leipsic mourned him when he died, for he was the pattern of the -ideal German scholar, as daringly original in his thought as he was -homely in his life, a modest, genial, laborious slave to truth and -learning.... His mind was indeed one of those multitudinously organized -crossroads of truth which are occupied only at rare intervals by children -of men, and from which nothing is either too far or too near to be seen -in due perspective. Patientest observation, exactest mathematics, -shrewdest discrimination, humanest feeling, flourished in him on the -largest scale, with no apparent detriment to one another. He was in fact -a philosopher in the 'great' sense." - -"Yes," said O'Malley softly in my ear as we leaned against the chimneys -and watched the tobacco curl up to the stars, "and it was this man's -imagination that had evidently caught old Stahl and bowled him over. -I never fathomed the doctor quite. His critical and imaginative apparatus -got a bit mixed up, I suspect, for one moment he cursed me for asking -'suspicious questions,' and the next sneered sarcastically at me for -boiling over with a sudden inspirational fancy of my own. He never -gave himself away completely, and left me to guess that he made that -Hospital place too hot to hold him. He was a wonderful bird. But every -time I aimed at him I shot wide and hit a cloud. Meantime he peppered -me all over--one minute urging me into closer intimacy with my -Russian--his cosmic being, his _Urmensch_ type--so that he might study -my destruction, and half an hour later doing his utmost apparently to -protect me from him and keep me sane and balanced." His laugh rang -out over the roofs. - -"The net result," he added, his face tilted toward the stars as though -he said it to the open sky rather than to me, "was that he pushed me -forwards into the greatest adventure life has ever brought to me. I -believe, I verily believe that sometimes, there were moments of -unconsciousness--semi-consciousness perhaps--when I really did leave my -body--caught away as Moses, or was it Job or Paul?--into a Third Heaven, -where I touched a bit of Reality that fairly made me reel with happiness -and wonder." - -"Well, but Fechner--and his great idea?" I brought him back. - -He tossed his cigarette down into the back-garden that fringed the -Park, leaning over to watch its zigzag flight of flame. - -"Is simply this," he replied, "--'that not alone the earth but the -whole Universe in its different spans and wave-lengths, is everywhere -alive and conscious.' He regards the spiritual as the rule in Nature, not -the exception. The professorial philosophers have no vision. Fechner -towers above them as a man of vision. He dared to imagine. He made -discoveries--whew!!" he whistled, "and such discoveries!" - -"To which the scholars and professors of today," I suggested, "would -think reply not even called for?" - -"Ah," he laughed, "the solemn-faced Intellectuals with their narrow -outlook, their atrophied vision, and their long words! Perhaps! But in -Fechner's universe there is room for every grade of spiritual being -between man and God. The vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders -of body. He believes passionately in the Earth Soul, he treats her as our -special guardian angel; we can pray to the Earth as men pray to their -saints. The Earth has a Collective Consciousness. We rise upon the Earth -as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow out of her soil as leaves grow -from a tree. Sometimes we find our bigger life and realize that we are -parts of her bigger collective consciousness, but as a rule we are aware -only of our separateness, as individuals. These moments of cosmic -consciousness are rare. They come with love, sometimes with pain, music -may bring them too, but above all--landscape and the beauty of Nature! -Men are too petty, conceited, egoistic to welcome them, clinging for dear -life to their precious individualities." - -He drew breath and then went on: "'Fechner likens our individual -persons on the earth to so many sense-organs of her soul, adding to -her perceptive life so long as our own life lasts. She absorbs our -perceptions, just as they occur, into her larger sphere of knowledge. -When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for -all perceptive contributions from that particular quarter cease.'" - -"Go on," I exclaimed, realizing that he was obviously quoting verbatim -fragments from James that he had since pondered over till they had -become his own, "Tell me more. It is delightful and very splendid." - -"Yes," he said, "I'll go on quick enough, provided you promise me one -thing: and that is--to understand that Fechner does not regard the -Earth as a sort of big human being. If a being at all, she is a being -utterly different from us in kind, as of course we know she is in -structure. Planetary beings, as a class, would be totally different from -any other beings that we know. He merely protests at the presumption of -our insignificant human knowledge in denying some kind of life and -consciousness to a form so beautifully and marvelously organized as -that of the earth! The heavenly bodies, he holds, are beings superior to -men in the scale of life--a vaster order of intelligence altogether. A -little two-legged man with his cocksure reason strutting on its tiny -brain as the apex of attainment he ridicules. D'ye see, now?" - -I gasped, I lit a big pipe--and listened. He went on. This time it was -clearly a page from that Hibbert Lecture Stahl had mentioned--the one -in which Professor James tries to give some idea of Fechner's aim and -scope, while admitting that he "inevitably does him miserable injustice -by summarizing and abridging him." - -"Ages ago the earth was called an animal," I ventured. "We all know -that." - -"But Fechner," he replied, "insists that a planet is a higher class of -being than either man or animal--'a being whose enormous size requires an -altogether different plan of life.'" - -"An inhabitant of the ether--?" - -"You've hit it," he replied eagerly. "Every element has its own living -denizens. Ether, then, also has hers--the globes. 'The ocean of ether, -whose waves are light, has also her denizens--higher by as much as -their element is higher, swimming without fins, flying without wings, -moving, immense and tranquil, as by a half-spiritual force through the -half-spiritual sea which they inhabit,' sensitive to the slightest pull -of one another's attraction: beings in every way superior to us. Any -imagination, you know," he added, "can play with the idea. It is old as -the hills. But this chap showed how and why it could be actually true." - -"This superiority, though?" I queried. "I should have guessed their -stage of development lower than ours, rather than higher." - -"Different," he answered, "different. That's the point." - -"Ah!" I watched a shooting star dive across our thick, wet atmosphere, -and caught myself wondering whether the flash and heat of that hurrying -little visitor produced any reaction in this Collective Consciousness -of the huge Body whereon we perched and chattered, and upon which -later it would fall in finest dust. - -"It is by insisting on the differences as well as on the resemblances," -rushed on the excited O'Malley, "that he makes the picture of the earth's -life so concrete. Think a moment. For instance, our animal organization -comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to and fro, of stretching -our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only our defect." - -"Defect!" I cried. "But we're so proud of it!" - -'"What are our legs,'" he laughed, "'but crutches, by means of which, -with restless efforts, we go hunting after the things we have not inside -ourselves? The Earth is no such cripple; why should she who already -possesses within herself the things we so painfully pursue, have limbs -analogous to ours? What need has she of arms, with nothing to reach -for? Of a neck with no head to carry? Of eyes or nose, when she finds -her way through space without either, and has the millions of eyes of -all her animals to guide their movements on her surface, and all their -noses to smell the flowers she grows?'" - -"We are literally a part of her, then--projections of her immense life, -as it were--one of the projections, at least?" - -"Exactly. And just as we are ourselves a part of the earth," he -continued, taking up my thought at once, "so are our organs her organs. -'She is, as it were, eye and ear over her whole extent--all that we see -and hear in separation she sees and hears at once.'" He stood up beside -me and spread his hands out to the stars and over the trees and paths -of the Park at our feet, where the throngs of men and women walked -and talked together in the cool of the evening. His enthusiasm grew as -the idea of this German's towering imagination possessed him. - -"'She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon her surface, -and their multitudinous conscious relations with each other she takes -up into her higher and more general conscious life.'" - -He leaned over the parapet and drew me to his side. I stared with him -at the reflection of London town in the sky, thinking of the glow and -heat and restless stir of the great city and of the frantic strivings of -its millions for success--money, power, fame, a few, here and there, for -spiritual success. The roar of its huge trafficking beat across the night -in ugly thunder to our ears. I thought of the other cities of the world; -of its villages; of shepherds among the lonely hills; of its myriad wild -creatures in forest, plain, and mountain... - -"All this she takes up into her great heart as part of herself!" I -murmured. - -"All this," he replied softly, as the sound of the Band beyond the -Serpentine floated over to us on our roof; "--the separate little -consciousnesses of all the cities, all the tribes, all the nations of -men, animals, flowers, insects--everything." He again opened his arms to -the sky. He drew in deep breaths of the night air. The dew glistened on -the slates behind us. Far across the towers of Westminster a yellow moon -rose slowly, dimming the stars. Big Ben, deeply booming, trembled on -the air nine of her stupendous vibrations. Automatically, I counted -them--subconsciously. - -"And all our subconscious sensations are also hers," he added, catching -my thought again; "our dreams but half divined, our aspirations half -confessed, our tears, our yearnings, and our--prayers." - -At the moment it almost seemed to me as if our two minds joined, each -knowing the currents of the other's thought, and both caught up, gathered -ill, folded comfortably away into the stream of a Consciousness far -bigger than either. It was like a momentary, specific proof of what -he urged--a faint pulse-beat we heard of the soul of the earth; and it -was amazingly uplifting. - -"Every form of life, then, is of importance," I heard myself thinking, -or saying, for I hardly knew which. "The tiniest efforts of value--even -the unrecognized ones, and those that seem futile." - -"Even the failures," he whispered, "--the moments when we do not trust -her." - -We stood for some moments in silence. Presently, with a hand upon my -shoulder, he drew me down again among our rugs against the chimney-stack. - -"And there are some of us," he said gently, yet with a voice that held -the trembling of an immense joy, "who know a more intimate relationship -with their great Mother than the rest, perhaps. By the so-called Love -of Nature, or by some artless simplicity of soul, wholly unmodern of -course, perhaps felt by children or poets mostly, they lie caught close -to her own deep life, knowing the immense sweet guidance of her mighty -soul, divinely mothered, strangers to all the strife for material -gain--to that 'unrest which men miscall delight,'--primitive children of -her potent youth ... offspring of pure passion ... each individual -conscious of her weight and drive behind him--" His words faded away into -a whisper that became unintelligible, then inaudible; but his thought -somehow continued itself in my own mind. - -"The simple life," I said in a low tone; "the Call of the Wild, raised -to its highest power?" - -But he changed my sentence a little. - -"The call," he answered, without turning to look at me, speaking it -into the night about us, "the call to childhood, the true, pure, vital -childhood of the Earth--the Golden Age--before men tasted of the Tree and -knew themselves separate; when the lion and the lamb lay down together -and a little child could lead them. A time and state, that is, of which -such phrases can be symbolical." - -"And of which there may be here and there some fearful exquisite -survival?" I suggested, remembering Stahl's words. - -His eyes shone with the fire of his passion. "Of which on that little -tourist steamer I found one!" - -The wind that fanned our faces came perhaps across the arid wastes -of Bayswater and the North-West. It also came from the mountains and -gardens of this lost Arcadia, vanished for most beyond recovery.... - -"The Hebrew poets called it Before the Fall," he went on, "and later -poets the Golden Age; today it shines through phrases like the Land of -Heart's Desire, the Promised Land, Paradise, and what not; while the -minds of saint and mystic have ever dreamed of it as union with their -deity. For it is possible and open to all, to every heart, that is, not -blinded by the cloaking horror of materialism which blocks the doorways -of escape and prisons self behind the drab illusion that the outer form -is the reality and riot the inner thought...." - -The hoarse shouting of a couple of drunken men floated to us from the -pavements, and crossing over, we peered down toward the opening of Sloane -Street, watching a moment the stream of broughams, motors, and -pedestrians. The two men with the rage of an artificial stimulant in -their brains reeled out of sight. A big policeman followed slowly. The -night-life of the great glaring city poured on unceasingly--the stream -of souls all hurrying by divers routes and means toward a state where -they sought to lose themselves--to forget the pressure of the bars that -held them--to escape the fret and worry of their harassing personalities, -and touch some fringe of happiness! All so sure they knew the way--yet -hurrying really in the wrong direction--outwards instead of inwards; -afraid to be--simple.... - -We moved back to our rugs. For a long time neither of us found -anything to say. Soon I led the way down the creaking ladder indoors -again, and we entered the stuffy little sitting-room of the tiny flat he -temporarily occupied. I turned up an electric light, but O'Malley begged -me to lower it. I only had time to see that his eyes were still aglow. We -sat by the open window. He drew a worn notebook from his still more -worn coat; but it was too dark for him to read. He knew it all by heart. - - - - -XVII - - -Some of Fechner's reasons for thinking the Earth a being superior in the -scale to ourselves, he gave, but it was another passage that lingered -chiefly in my heart, the description of the daring German's joy in -dwelling upon her perfections--later, too, of his first simple vision. -Though myself wholly of the earth, earthy in the ordinary sense, the -beauty of the thoughts live in my spirit to this day, transfiguring even -that dingy Insurance Office, streaming through all my dullest, hardest -daily tasks with the inspiration of a simple delight that helps me over -many a difficult weary time of work and duty. - -"'To carry her precious freight through the hours and seasons what form -could be more excellent than hers--being as it is horse, wheels, and -wagon all in one. Think of her beauty--a shining ball, sky-blue and -sunlit over one half, the other bathed in starry night, reflecting the -heavens from all her waters, myriads of lights and shadows in the folds -of her mountains and windings of her valleys she would be a spectacle -of rainbow glory, could one only see her from afar as we see parts of -her from her own mountain tops. Every quality of landscape that has -a name would then be visible in her all at once--all that is delicate or -graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or -cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. _That landscape is her face_--a peopled -landscape, too, for men's eyes would appear in it like diamonds among the -dew-drops. Green would be the dominant color, but the blue atmosphere -and the clouds would enfold her as a bride is shrouded in her veil--a -veil the vapory, transparent folds of which the earth, through her -ministers the winds, never tires of laying and folding about herself -anew.' - -"She needs, as a sentient organism," he continued, pointing into the -curtain of blue night beyond the window, "no heart or brain or lungs -as we do, for she is--different. 'Their functions she performs _through -us_! She has no proper muscles or limbs of her own, and the only objects -external to her are the other stars. To these her whole mass reacts by -the most exquisite alterations in its total gait and by the still more -exquisite vibratory responses in its substance. Her ocean reflects the -lights of heaven as in a mighty mirror, her atmosphere refracts them like -a monstrous lens, the clouds and snowfields combine them into white, -the woods and flowers disperse them into colors.... Men have always -made fables about angels, dwelling in the light, needing no earthly food -or drink, messengers between ourselves and God. Here are actually -existent beings, dwelling in the light and moving through the sky, -needing neither food nor drink, intermediaries between God and us, -obeying His commands. So, if the heavens really are the home of angels, -the heavenly bodies must be those very angels, for other creatures there -are none. Yes! the Earth is our great common guardian angel, who -watches over all our interests combined.' - -"And then," whispered the Irishman, seeing that I still eagerly listened, -"give your ear to one of his moments of direct vision. Note its -simplicity, and the authority of its conviction: - -"'On a certain spring morning I went out to walk. The fields were green, -the birds sang, the dew glistened, the smoke was rising, here and there a -man appeared; a light as of transfiguration lay on all things. It was -only a little bit of the earth; it was only a moment of her existence; -and yet as my look embraced her more and more it seemed to me not -only so beautiful an idea, but so true and clear a fact, that she is an -angel, an angel so rich and fresh and flower-like, and yet going her -round in the skies so firmly and so at one with herself, turning her -whole living face to Heaven, and carrying me along with her into that -Heaven, that I asked myself how the opinions of men could ever have so -spun themselves away from life as to deem the earth only a dry clod, -and to seek for angels above it or about it in the emptiness of the -sky,--only to find them nowhere.'" - -Fire-engines, clanging as with a hurrying anger through the night, -broke in upon his impassioned sentences; the shouts of the men drowned -his last words.... - -Life became very wonderful inside those tight, confining walls, for -the spell and grandeur of the whole conception lifted the heart. Even -if belief failed, in the sense of believing--a shilling, it succeeded in -the sense of believing--a symphony. The invading beauty swept about us -both. Here was a glory that was also a driving power upon which any -but a man half dead could draw for practical use. For the big conceptions -fan the will. The little pains of life, they make one feel, need not kill -true joy, nor deaden effort. - -"Come," said O'Malley softly, interrupting my dream of hope and -splendor, "let us walk together through the Park to your place. It is -late, and you, I know, have to be up early in the morning ... earlier -than I." - -And presently we passed the statue of Achilles and got our feet upon -the turf beyond--a little bit of living planet in the middle of the -heavy smothering London town. About us, over us, within us, stirred the -awe of that immense idea. Upon that bit of living, growing turf we -passed toward the Marble Arch, treading, as it were, the skin of a huge -Body--the physical expression of a grand angelic Being, alive, sentient, -conscious. Conscious, moreover, of our little separate individual selves -who walked ... a Being who cared; who felt us; who knew, understood, -and--loved us as a mother her own offspring.... "To whom men could -pray as they pray to their saints." - -The conception, even thus dimly and confusedly adumbrated, brought a new -sense of life--terrific and eternal. All living things upon the earth's -surface were emanations of her mighty central soul; all--from the gods -and fairies of olden time who knew it, to the men and women of Today who -have forgotten it. - -The gods--! - -Were these then projections of her personality--aspects and facets -of her divided self--emanations now withdrawn? Latent in her did they -still exist as moods or Powers--true, alive, everlasting, but unmanifest? -Still knowable to simple men and to Children of Nature? - -Was this the giant truth that Stahl had built on Fechner? - -Everything about us seemed to draw together into an immense and -towering configuration that included trees and air and the sweep of -open park--the looming and overwhelming beauty of one of these very -gods survived--Pan, the eternal and the splendid ... a mood of the -Earth-life, a projection clothed with the light of stars, the cloudy air, -the passion of the night, the thrill of an august, extended Mood. - -And the others were not so very far behind--those other little parcels -of Earth's Consciousness the Greeks and early races, the simple, -primitive, childlike peoples of the dawn, divined the existence of, and -labeled "gods" ... and worshipped ... so as to draw their powers into -themselves by ecstasy and vision ... - -Could, then, worship now still recall them? Was the attitude of even -one true worshipper's heart the force necessary to touch that particular -aspect of the mighty total Consciousness of Earth, and call forth those -ancient forms of beauty? Could it be that this idea--the idea of "the -gods"--was thus forever true and vital...? And might they be known -and felt in the heart if not actually in some suggested form? - -I only know that as we walked home past the doors of that dingy -Paddington house where Terence O'Malley kept his dusty books and -papers and so to my own quarters, these things he talked about dropped -into my mind with a bewildering splendor to stay forever. His words I -have forgotten, or how he made such speculations worth listening to at -all. Yet, I hear them singing in my blood as though of yesterday; and -often when that conflict comes 'twixt duty and desire that makes life -sometimes so vain and bitter, the memory comes to lift with strength -far greater than my own. The Earth can heal and bless. - - - - -XVIII - - -Slowly, taking life easily, the little steamer puffed its way across the -Ionian Sea. The pyramid of Etna, bluer even than the sky, dominated -the western horizon long after the heel of Italy had faded, then melted -in its turn into the haze of cloud and distance. No other sails were -visible. - -With the passing of Calabria spring had leaped into the softness of -full summer, and the breezes were gentle as those that long ago fanned -the cheeks and hair of Io, beloved of Zeus, as she flew southwards toward -the Nile. The passengers, less lovely than that fair daughter of Argos, -and with the unrest of thinner adventure in their blood, basked lazily -in the sun; but the sea was not less haunted for those among them whose -hearts could travel. The Irishman at any rate slipped beyond the confines -of the body, viewing that ancient scene as she had done, from above. -His widening consciousness expanded to include it. - -Cachalots spouted; dolphins danced, as though still to those wild -flutes of Dionysus; porpoises rolled beneath the surface of the -transparent waves, diving below the vessel's sides but just in time to -save their shiny noses; and all day long, ignoring the chart upon the -stairway walls, the tourists turned their glasses eastwards, searching -for a first sight of Greece. - -O'Malley, meanwhile, trod the decks of a new ship. For him now sea -and sky were doubly peopled. The wind brought messages of some divine -deliverance approaching slowly, the heat of that pearly, shining sun -warmed centers of his being that hitherto the world kept chill. The land -toward which the busy steamer moved he knew, of course, was but the -shell from which the inner spirit of beauty once vivifying it had long -since passed away. Yet it remained a clue. That ancient loveliness, as a -mood of the earth's early consciousness, was buried, not destroyed. -Eternally it still flamed somewhere. And, long before the days of Greece, -he knew, it had existed in yet fuller and more complete manifestation: -that earliest, vastly splendid Mood of the earth's soul, too mighty for -any existence that the history of humanity can recall, and too remote -for any but the most daringly imaginative minds even to conceive. The -_Urwelt_ Mood, as Stahl himself admitted, even while it called to him, -was a reconstruction that to men today could only seem--dangerous. - -And his own little Self, guided by the inarticulate stranger, was being -led at last toward its complete recapture. - -Yet, while he crawled slowly with the steamer over a tiny portion of -the spinning globe, feeling that at the same time he crawled toward a -spot upon it where access would be somehow possible to this huge -expression of her first Life--what was it, phrased timidly as men phrase -big thoughts today, that he really believed? Even in our London talks, -intimate as they were, interpreted too by gesture, facial expression, -and--silence, his full meaning evaded precise definition. "There are no -words, there are no words," he kept saying, shrugging his shoulders and -stroking his untidy hair. "In me, deep down, it all lies clear and plain -and strong; but language cannot seize a mode of life that throve before -language existed. If you cannot catch the picture from my thoughts, I -give up the whole dream in despair." And in his written account, owing -to its strange formlessness, the result was not a little bewildering. - -Briefly stated, however--that remnant, at least, which I discover in -my own mind when attempting to tell the story to others--what he -felt, believed, _lived_, at any rate while the adventure lasted, was -this:-- - -That the Earth, as a living, conscious Being, had known visible -projections of her consciousness similar to those projections of our own -personality which the advanced psychologists of today now envisage as -possible; that the simple savagery of his own nature, and the poignant -yearnings derived from it, were in reality due to his intimate closeness -to the life of the Earth; that, whereas in the body the fulfillment of -these longings was impossible, in the spirit he might yet know contact -with the soul of the planet, and thus experience their complete -satisfaction. Further, that the portion of his personality which could -thus enter this heaven of its own subjective construction, was that -detachable portion Stahl had spoken of as being "malleable by desire and -longing," leaving the body partially and temporarily sometimes in sleep, -and, at death, completely. More,--that the state thus entered would mean -a quasi-merging back into the life of the Earth herself, of which he was -a partial expression. - -This closeness to Nature was today so rare as to be almost unrecognized -as possible. Its possession constituted its owner what the doctor -called a "Cosmic Being"--a being scarcely differentiated from the life -of the Earth Spirit herself--a direct expression of her life, a survival -of a time before such expressions had separated away from her and become -individualized as human creatures. Moreover, certain of these earliest -manifestations or projections of her consciousness, knowing in their -huge shapes of fearful yet simple beauty a glory of her own being, still -also survived. The generic term of "gods" might describe their status as -interpreted to the little human power called Imagination. - -This call to the simple life of primal innocence and wonder that had ever -brimmed the heart of the Irishman, acknowledged while not understood, -might have slumbered itself away with the years among modern conditions -into atrophy and denial, had he not chanced to encounter a more direct -and vital instance of it even than himself. The powerfully-charged being -of this Russian stranger had summoned it forth. The mere presence of this -man quickened and evoked this faintly-stirring center in his psychic -being that opened the channel of return. Speech, as any other -explanation, was unnecessary. To resist was still within his power. To -accept and go was also open to him. The "inner catastrophe" he feared -need not perhaps be insuperable or permanent. - -"Remember," the doctor had said to him at the end of that last -significant conversation, "this berth in my stateroom is freely at your -disposal till Batoum." And O'Malley, thanking him, had shaken off -that restraining hand upon his arm, knowing that he would never make -use of it again. - -For the Russian stranger and his son had somehow made him free. - -Between that cabin and the decks he spent his day. Occasionally he -would go below to report progress, as it were, by little sentences which -he divined would be acceptable, and at the same time gave expression -to his own growing delight. The boy, meanwhile, was everywhere, playing -alone like a wild thing; one minute in the bows, hat off, gazing -across the sea beneath a shading hand, and the next leaning over the -stern-rails to watch the churning foam that drove them forwards. At -regular intervals he, too, rushed to the cabin and brought communications -to his parent. - -"Tomorrow at dawn," observed the Irishman, "we shall see Cape Mattapan -rising from the sea. After that, Athens for a few hours; then coasting -through the Cyclades, close to the mainland often." And glancing over to -the berth, while pretending to be busy with his steamer-trunk, he saw the -great smile of happiness break over the other's face like a sunrise.... - -For it was clear to him that with the approach to Greece, a change -began to come over his companions. It was noticeable chiefly in the -father. The joy that filled the man, too fine and large to be named -excitement, passed from him in radiations that positively seemed to -carry with them a physical extension. This, of course, was purely a -clairvoyant effect upon the mind--O'Malley's divining faculty -visualized the spiritual traits of the man's dilating Self. But, -nevertheless, the truth remained that--somehow he increased. He grew; -became interiorly more active, alive, potent; and of this singular waxing -of the inner spirit something passed outwards and stood with rare dignity -about his very figure. - -And this manifestation of themselves was due to that expansion of -the inner life caused by happiness. The little point of their -personalities they showed normally to the world was but a single facet, a -tip as it were of their whole selves. More lay within, beyond. As with -the rest of the world, a great emotion stimulated and summoned it forth -into activity nearer the surface. Clearly, for these two Greece -symbolized a point of departure of a great hidden passion. Something they -expected lay waiting for them there. Guidance would come thence. - -And, by reflection perhaps as much as by direct stimulation, the same -change made itself felt in himself. Joy caught him--the joy of a -home-coming, long deferred.... - -At the same time, the warning of Dr. Stahl worked in him, if -subconsciously only. He showed this by mixing more with the other -passengers. He chatted with the Captain, who was as pleased with his -big family as though he had personally provided the weather that made -them happy; with the Armenian priest, who was eager to show that he -had read "a much of T'ackeray and Keeplin"; and especially with the -boasting Moscow merchant, who by this time "owned" the smoking-room and -imposed his verbose commonplaces upon one and all with authoritative -self-confidence in six languages--a provincial mind in full display. The -latter in particular held him to a normal humanity; his atmosphere -breathed the wholesome thickness of the majority of humankind--ordinary, -egoistic, with the simplicity of the uninspiring sort. The merchant acted -upon him as a sedative, and that day the Irishman took him in large -doses, allopathically, for his talk formed an admirable antidote to the -stress of that other burning excitement that, according to Stahl, -threatened to disintegrate his personality. - -Though hardly in the sense he intended, the fur-merchant was entirely -delightful--engaging as a child; for, among other marked qualities, he -possessed the unerring instinct of the snob which made him select for -his friends those whose names or position might glorify his banal -insignificance--and his stories were vivid pictorial illustrations of -this useful worldly faculty. O'Malley listened with secret delight, -keeping a grave face and dropping in occasional innocent questions to -heighten the color or increase the output. Others in the circle responded -in kind, feeling the same chord vibrating in themselves. Even the priest, -like a repeating-gun, continually discharged his little secret pride that -Byron had occupied a room in that Venetian monastery where he lived; and -at last O'Malley himself was conscious of an inclination to report his -own immense and recently discovered kinship with a greater soul and -consciousness than his own. After all, he reflected with a deep thrill -while he listened, the desire of the snob was but a crude and simple form -of the desire of the mystic:--to lose one's little self in a Self which -is greater! - -Then, weary of them all and their minute personal interests, he left -the smoking-room and joined the boy again, running absurd races with -him from stern to bow, playing hide-and-seek among the decks, even -playing shuffle-board together. They sweated in the blazing sun and -watched the dance of the sea; caught the wind in their faces with a shout -of joy, or with pointing fingers followed the changing outlines of the -rare, soft clouds that sailed the world of blue above them. There was no -speech between them, and both felt that other things, invisible, swift, -and spirit-footed, whose home is just beyond the edge of life as the -senses report life, played wildly with them. The smoking-room then, -with its occupants so greedy for the things that money connotes--the -furs, champagne, cigars, and heavy possessions that were symbols of the -personal aggrandizement they sought and valued--seemed to the -Irishman like a charnel-house where those about to die sat making -inventories in blind pride of the things they must leave behind. - -It was, indeed, a contrast of Death and Life. For beside him, with -that playing, silent boy, coursed the power of transforming loveliness -which had breathed over the world before her surface knew this swarming -race of men. The life of the Earth knew no need of outward -acquisition, possessing all things so completely in herself. And he--he -was her child--O glory! Joy passing belief! - -"Oh!" he cried once with passion, turning to the fair-haired figure of -youth who stood with him in the bows, meeting the soft wind,--"Oh, -to have heard the trees whispering together in the youth of the world, -and felt one of the earliest winds that ever blew across the cooling -seas!" - -And the boy, not understanding the words, but responding with a -perfect naturalness to the emotion that drove them forth, seized his -hand and with an extraordinarily free motion as of flying, raced with -him down the decks, happy, laughing, hair loose over his face, and with -a singular action of the shoulders as though he somehow--cantered. -O'Malley remembered his vision of the Flying Shapes.... - -Toward the evening, however, the boy disappeared, keeping close to -his father's side, and after dinner both retired early to their cabin. - -And the ship, meanwhile, drew ever nearer to the haunted land. - - - - -XIX - -"Privacy is ignorance." - ---JOSIAH ROYCE - - -Somewhat after the manner of things suffered in vivid dreams, where -surprise is numbed and wonder becomes the perfect password, the Irishman -remembers the sequence of little events that filled the following day. - -Yet his excitement held nothing of the vicious fling of fever; it was -spread over the entire being rather than located hotly in the brain and -blood alone; and it "derived," as it were, from tracts of his personality -usually unstirred, atrophied indeed in most men, that connected him -as by a delicate network of feelers with Nature and the Earth. He came -gradually to feel them, as a man in certain abnormal conditions becomes -conscious of the bodily processes that customarily go on in himself -without definite recognition. - -Stahl could have told him, had he cared to seek the information, that -this fringe of wider consciousness, stretching to the stars and winds -and earth, was the very part that had caused his long unrest and -yearning--the part that knew the Earth as mother and sought the sweet -and savage freedom of what he called with the poverty of modern -terms--primitive. The channels leading toward a state of Cosmic -Consciousness, one with the Earth Life, were being now flushed and -sluiced by the forces emanating from the persons of his new companions. - -And as this new state slowly usurped command, the readjustment of -his spiritual economy thus involved, caused other portions of himself -to sink into temporary abeyance. While it alarmed him, it was too -delicious to resist. He made no real attempt to resist. Yet he knew full -well that the portion sinking thus out of sight was what folk with such -high pride call Reason, Judgment, Common Sense! - -In common with animal, bird, and insect life, all intimately close to -Nature, he began to feel as realities those subtle currents of the -Earth's personality by which the seals know direction in the depths of a -thousand-mile sea, by which the homing pigeons blaze trails through -space, birds fly south, the wild bees know their pathways, and all simple -life, from the Red Indian to the Red Ant, acknowledges the viewless -guidance of the mother's enveloping heart. The cosmic life ran through -his being, lighting signals, offering service, more--claiming leadership. - -With it, however, came no loss of individuality, but rather a powerful -increase of life by means of which for the first time he dreamed of a -fuller existence which should eventually harmonize and combine the -ancient simplicity of soul that claimed the Earth, with the modern -complexity which, indulged alone, rendered the world so ugly and -insignificant...! He experienced an immense, driving push upon what -Bergson has called the _élan vital_ of his being. - -The opening charge of his new discovery, however, was more than -disconcerting, and it is not surprising that he lost his balance. Its -attack and rush were overwhelming. Thus, it was a kind of exalted -speculative wonder lying behind his inner joy that caused his mistakes. -He had imagined, for instance, that the first sight of Greece would bring -some climax of revelation, making clear to what particular type of early -life the spirits of his companions conformed; more, that they would then -betray themselves to one and all for what they were in some effort to -escape, in some act of unrestraint, something, in a word, that would -explain themselves to the world of passengers, and focus them upon the -doctor's microscope forever. - -Yet when Greece showed her first fair rim of outline, his companions -still slept peacefully in their bunks. The anticipated _dénouement_ did -not appear. Nothing happened. It was not the mere sight of so much land -lying upon the sea's cool cheek that could prove vital in an adventure -of such a kind. For the adventure remained spiritual. O'Malley had -merely confused two planes of consciousness. As usual, he saw the thing -"whole" in that extraordinary way to which his imagination alone held -the key; and hence his error. - -Yet the moment has ever remained for him one of vital, stirring -splendor, significant as life or death. He remembers that he was early -on deck and saw the dawn blow up softly from behind the islands with -a fresh, salt wind that blew at the same time like music into his very -heart. Golden clear it rose; and just below, like the petals of some -vast, archetypal flower that gave it birth, the low blue hills of coast -and island opened magically into blossom. The rocky cliffs of Mattapan -slipped past; the smooth, bare slopes of the ancient shore-line followed; -treeless peaks and shoulders, abrupt precipices, summits and ridges all -exquisitely rosy and alive. He had seen Greece before, yet never thus, -and the emotion that invaded every corner of his larger consciousness lay -infinitely deeper than any mere pseudo-classical thrill he had known in -previous years. He saw it, felt it, knew it from within, instead of as a -spectator from without. This dawn-mood of the Earth was also his own; -and upon his spirit, as upon her blue-crowned hills, lay the tide of high -light with its delicate swift blush. He saw it with her--through one of -her opened eyes. - -The hot hours the steamer lay in the Piraeus Harbor were wearisome, -the noise of loading and unloading cargo worse even than at Catania. -While the tourist passengers hurried fussily ashore, carrying guidebooks -and cameras, to chatter among the ruined temples, he walked the decks -alone, dreaming his great dream, conscious that he spun through leagues -of space with the great Being who more and more possessed him. Beyond -the shipping and the masts collected there from all the ports of the -Mediterranean and the Levant, he watched the train puffing slowly to -the station that lay in the shadow of Theseus' Temple, but his eyes at -the same tune strained across the haze toward Eleusis Bay, and while -his ears caught the tramping feet of the long Torchlight Procession, some -power of his remoter consciousness divined the forms of hovering gods, -expressions of his vast Mother's personality with which, in worship, this -ancient people had believed it possible to merge themselves. The -significant truths that lay behind the higher Mysteries, degraded since -because forgotten and misinterpreted, trooped powerfully down into his -mind. For the supreme act of this profound cult, denied by a grosser age -that seeks to telephone to heaven, deeming itself thereby "advanced," lay -in the union of the disciple with his god, the god he worshipped all his -life, and into whose Person he slipped finally at death by a kind of -marriage rite. - -"The gods!" ran again through his mind with passion and delight, as -the letter of his early studies returned upon him, accompanied now for -the first time by the in-living spirit that interpreted them. "The -gods!--Moods of her giant life, manifestations of her spreading -Consciousness pushed outwards, Powers of life and truth and beauty...!" - - * * * * * - -And, meanwhile, Dr. Stahl, sometimes from a distance, sometimes coming -close, kept over him a kind of half-paternal, half-professional -attendance, the Irishman accepting his ministrations without resentment, -almost with indifference. - -"I shall be on deck between two and three in the morning to see the -comet," the German observed to him casually toward evening as they -met on the bridge. "We may meet perhaps--" - -"All right, doctor; it's more than possible," replied O'Malley, realizing -how closely he was being watched. - -In his mind at the moment another sentence ran, the thought growing -stronger and stronger within him as the day declined: - -"It will come tonight--come as an inner catastrophe not unlike that -of death! I shall hear the call--to escape...." - -For he knew, as well as if it had been told to him in so many words, -that the sleep of his two companions all day was in the nature of a -preparation. The fluid projections of themselves were all the time active -elsewhere. Their bodies heavily slumbered; their spirits were out and -alert. Summoned forth by those strange and radiant evocative forces -that even in the dullest minds "Greece" stirs into life, they had -temporarily escaped. Again he saw those shapes of cloud and wind moving -with swift freedom over the long, bare hills. Again and again the image -returned. With the night a similar separation of the personality might -come to himself too. Stahl's warning passed in letters of fire across his -inner sight. With a relief that yet contained uneasiness he watched his -shambling figure disappear down the stairway. He was alone. - - - - -XX - -"To everything that a man does he must give his undivided attention or -his Ego. When he has done this, thoughts soon arise in him, or else a new -method of apprehension miraculously appears.... - -"Very remarkable it is that through this play of his personality man -first becomes aware of his specific freedom, and that it seems to him as -though he awaked out of a deep sleep as though he were only now at home -in the world, and as if the light of day were breaking now over his -interior life for the first time.... The substance of these impressions -which affect us we call Nature, and thus Nature stands in an immediate -relationship to those functions of our bodies which we call senses. -Unknown and mysterious relations of our body allow us to surmise unknown -and mysterious correlations with Nature, and therefore Nature is that -wondrous fellowship into which our bodies introduce us, and which we -learn to know through the mode of its constitutions and abilities." - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Saïs_. Translated by U.C.B. - - -And so, at last, the darkness came, a starry darkness of soft blue -shadows and phosphorescent sea out of which the hills of the Cyclades -rose faint as pictures of floating smoke a wind might waft away like -flowers to the sky. - -The plains of Marathon lay far astern, blushing faintly with their -scarlet tamarisk blossoms. The strange purple glow of sunset upon -Hymettus had long since faded. A hush grew over the sea, now a -marvelous cobalt blue. The earth, gently sleeping, manifested dreamily. -Into the subconscious state passed one half of her huge, gentle life. - -The Irishman, responding to the eternal spell of her dream-state, -experienced in quite a new way the magic of her Night-Mood. He found -it more difficult than ever to realize as separate entities the little -things that moved about through the upper surface of her darkness. -Wings of silver, powerfully whirring, swept his soul onwards to another -place--toward Home. - -And the two worlds intermingled oddly. These little separate "outer -things" going to and fro so busily became as symbols more or less vital, -more or less transparent. They varied according to their simplicity. Some -of them were channels that led directly where he was going; others, -again, had lost all connection with their vital source and center of -existence. To the former belonged the sailors, children, the tired birds -that rested on the ship as they journeyed northwards, swallows, doves, -and little travelers with breasts of spotted yellow that nested in the -rigging; even, in a measure, the gentle, brown-eyed priest; but to the -latter, the noisy, vulgar, beer-drinking tourists, and, especially, -the fur-merchant.... Stahl, interpreter and intermediary, hovered -between--incarnate compromise. - -Escaping from everybody, at length, he made his way into the bows; there, -covered by the stars, he waited. And the thing he waited for--he felt it -coming over him with a kind of massive sensation as little local as heat -or cold--was that disentanglement of a part of his personality from the -rest against which Stahl had warned him. That portion of his complex -personality in which resided desire and longing, matured during these -many years of poignant nostalgia, was now slowly and deliberately -loosening out from the parent center. It was the vehicle of his _Urwelt_ -yearnings; and the _Urwelt_ was about to draw it forth. The Call -was on its way. - -Hereabouts, then, near the Isles of Greece, lay a channel to the Earth's -far youth, a channel for some reason still unclosed. His companions -knew it; he, too, had half divined it. The increased psychic activity of -all three as they approached Greece seemed explained. The sign--would -it be through hearing, sight, or touch?--would shortly come that should -convince. - -That very afternoon Stahl had said--"Greece will betray them," and -he had asked: "Their true form and type?" And for answer the old man -did an expressive thing, far more convincing than words: he bent -forwards and downwards. He made as though to move a moment on all fours. - -O'Malley remembered the brief and vital scene now. The word, however, -persistently refused to come into his mind. Because the word was really -inadequate, describing but partially a form and outline symbolical of far -more,--a measure of Nature and Deity alike. - -And so, as a man dreading the entrance to a great adventure that he -yet desires, the Irishman waited there alone beneath the cloud of -night.... Soft threads of star-gold, trailing the sea, wove with the -darkness a veil that hid from his eyes the world of crude effects. All -memory of the casual realities of modern life that so distressed his -soul, fled far away. The archetypal world, soul of the Earth, swam close -about him, enormous and utterly simple. He seemed alone in some hollow of -the night which Time had overlooked, and where the powers of sea and -air held him in the stretch of their gigantic, changeless hands. In this -hollow lay the entrance to the channel down which he presently might -flash back to that primal Garden of the Earth's first beauty--her Golden -Age... down which, at any rate, the authoritative Call he awaited was -to come.... "Oh! what a power has white simplicity!" - -Wings from the past, serene and tranquil, bore him toward this ancient -peace where echoes of life's brazen clash today could never enter. -Ages before Greece, of course, it had flourished, yet Greece had caught -some flying remnant ere it left the world of men, and for a period had -striven to renew its life, though by poetry but half believed. Over the -vales and hills of Hellas this mood had lingered bravely for a while, -then passed away forever ... and those who dreamed of its remembrance -remain homeless and lonely, seeking it ever again in vain, lost citizens, -rejected by the cycles of vainer life and action that succeeded. - -The Spirit of the Earth, yes, whispered in his ears as he waited covered -by the night and stars. She called him, as though across all the forests -on her breast the long sweet winds went whispering his name. Lying -there upon the coils of thick and tarry rope, the _Urwelt_ caught him -back with her splendid passion. Currents of Earth life, quasi-deific, -gentle as the hands of little children, tugged softly at this loosening -portion of his Self, urging his very lips, as it were, once more to the -mighty Mother's breasts. Again he saw those cloud-like shapes careering -over long, bare hills ... and almost knew himself among them as they -raced with streaming winds ... free, ancient comrades among whom he was -no longer alien and outcast, including his two companions of the steamer. -The early memory of the Earth became his own; as a part of her, he -shared it too. - -The _Urwelt_ closed magnificently about him. Vast shapes of power and -beauty, other than human, once his comrades thus, but since withdrawn -because denied by a pettier age, moved up, huge and dim, across the -sham barriers of time and space, singing the great Earth-Song of welcome -in his ears. The whisper grew awfully.... The Spirit of the Earth -flew close and called upon him with a shout...! - -Then, out of this amazing reverie, he woke abruptly to the consciousness -that some one was approaching him stealthily, yet with speed, through the -darkness. With a start he sat up, peering about him. There was dew on his -clothes and hair. The stars, he saw, had shifted their positions. - -He heard the surge of the water from the vessel's bows below. The -line of the shore lay close on either side. Overhead he saw the black -threads of rigging, quivering with the movement of the ship; the swaying -mast-head light; the dim, round funnels; the confused shadows where -the boats swung--and nearer, moving between the ropes and windlasses, -this hurrying figure whose approach had disturbed him in his gorgeous -dream. - -And O'Malley divined at once that, though in one sense a portion of his -dream, it belonged outwardly to the same world as this long dark steamer -that trailed after him across the sea. A piece of his vision, as it -were, had broken off and remained in the cruder world wherein his body -lay upon these tarry ropes. The boy came up and stood a moment by -his side in silence, then, stooping to the level of his head, he spoke:-- - -"Come," he said in low tones of joy; "come! We wait long for you -already!" - -The words, like music, floated over the sea, as O'Malley took the -outstretched hand and suffered himself to be led quickly toward the -lower deck. He walked at first as in a dream continued after waking; -more than once it seemed as though they stepped together from the -boards and moved through space toward the line of peaked hills that -fringed the steamer's course so close. For through the salt night air ran -a perfume that suggested flowers, earth, and woods, and there seemed -no break in the platforms of darkness that knit sea and shore to the very -substance of the vessel. - - - - -XXI - - -The lights in the saloon were out, the smoking-room empty, the -passengers in bed. The ship seemed entirely deserted. Only, on the -bridge, the shadow of the first officer paced quietly to and fro. Then, -suddenly, as they approached the stern, O'Malley discerned anther -figure, huge and motionless, against the background of phosphorescent -foam; and at the first glance it was exactly as though he had detached -from the background of his mind one of those Flying Outlines upon -the hills--and caught it there, arrested visibly at last. - -He moved along, fairly sure of himself, yet with a tumult of confused -sensations, as if consciousness were transferring itself now more rapidly -to that portion of him which sought to escape. - -Leaning forward, in a stooping posture over the bulwarks, wrapped in the -flowing cape he sometimes wore, the man's back and shoulders married so -intimately with the night that it was hard to determine the dividing line -between the two. So much more of the deck behind him, and of the sky -immediately beyond his neck, was obliterated than by any possible human -outline. Whether owing to obliquity of disturbed vision, tricks of -shadow, or movement of the vessel between the stars and foam, the -Irishman saw these singular emanations spread about him into space. He -saw them this time directly. And more than ever before they seemed in -some way right and comely--true. They were in no sense monstrous; they -reported beauty, though a beauty cloaked in power. - -And, watching him, O'Malley felt that this loosening portion of himself, -as once before in the little cabin, likewise began to grow and spread. -Within some ancient fold of the Earth's dream-consciousness they both lay -caught. In some mighty Dream of her planetary Spirit, dim, immense, -slow-moving, they played their parts of wonder. Already they lay close -enough to share the currents of her subconscious activities. And the -dream, as she turned in her vast, spatial sleep, was a dream of a time -long gone. - -Here, amid the loneliness of deserted deck and night, this illusion of -bulk was more than ever before outwardly impressive, and as he yielded -to the persuasion of the boy's hand, he was conscious of a sudden wild -inclination to use his own arms and legs in a way he had never before -known or dreamed of, yet that seemed curiously familiar. The balance -and adjustment of his physical frame sought to shift and alter; neck and -shoulders, as it were, urged forward; there came a singular pricking in -the loins, a rising of the back, a thrusting up and outwards of the -chest. He felt that something grew behind him with a power that sought to -impel or drive him in advance and out across the world at a terrific -gait; and the hearing of his ears became of a sudden intensely acute. -While his body moved ordinarily, he knew that a part of him that was not -body moved--otherwise, that he neither walked, ran, nor stepped upon -two feet, but--galloped. The motion proclaimed him kin with the flying -shapes upon the hills. At the heart of this portion which sought to -detach itself from his central personality--which, indeed, seemed -already half escaped--he cantered. - -The experience lasted but a second--this swift, free motion of the -escaping Double--then passed away like those flashes of memory that rise -and vanish again before they can be seized for examination. He shook -himself free of the unaccountable obsession, and with the effort of -returning to the actual present, the passing-outwards was temporarily -checked. And it was then, just as he held himself in hand again, that -glancing sideways, he became aware that the boy beside him had, like -his parent, also changed--grown large and shadowy with a similar -suggestion of another splendid outline. The extension already half -accomplished in himself and fully accomplished in the father, was in -process of accomplishment in the smaller figure of the son. Clothed in -the emerged true shape of their inner being they slowly revealed -themselves. It was as bewildering as watching death, and as stern and -beautiful. - -For the boy, still holding his hand, loped along beside him as though -the projection that emanated from him, grown almost physical, were -somehow difficult to manage. - -In the moment of nearer, smaller consciousness that yet remained to -him, O'Malley recalled the significant pantomime of Dr. Stahl two days -before in the cabin. It came with a rush of fire. The warning operated; -his caution instantly worked. He dropped the hand, let the clinging -fingers slip from his own, overcome by something that appalled. For -this, surely, was the inner catastrophe that he dreaded, the radical -internal dislocation of his personality that involved--death. The thing -that had happened, or was happening to these other two, was on the -edge of fulfillment in himself--before he was either ready or had -decided to accept it. - -At any rate he hesitated; and the hesitation, shifting his center of -consciousness back into his brain, checked and saved him. A confused -sense of forces settling back within himself followed; a kind of rush and -scuttle of moods and powers: and he remained temporarily master of -his being, recovering balance and command. Twice already--in that -cabin-scene, as also on the deck when Stahl had seized him--the -moment had come close. Now, again, had he kept hold of the boy's -grasp, that inner transformation, which should later become externalized, -must have completed itself. - -"No, no!" he tried to cry aloud, "for I'm not yet ready!" But his voice -rose scarcely above a whisper. The decision of his will, however, had -produced the desired result. The "illusion," so strangely born, had -passed, at any rate for the time. He knew once more the glory of the -steadfast stars, realized that he walked normally upon a steamer's deck, -heard with welcome the surge of the sea below, and felt the peace of this -calm southern night as they coasted with two hundred sleeping tourists -between the islands and the Grecian mainland.... He remembered the -fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the Canadian drummer.... - -It seemed his feet half tripped, or at least that he put out a hand to -steady himself against the ship's long roll, for the pair of them moved -up to the big man's side with a curious, rushing motion that brought -them all together with a mild collision. And the boy laughed merrily, -his laughter like singing half completed. O'Malley remembers the little -detail, because it serves to show that he was yet still in a state of -intensified consciousness, far above the normal level. It was still "like -walking in my sleep or acting out some splendid dream," as he put it -in his written version. "Half out of my body, if you like, though in no -sense of the words at all half out of my mind!" - - - - -XXII - - -What followed he relates with passion, half confused. Without speaking -the big Russian turned his head by way of welcome, and O'Malley saw that -the proportions of it were magnificent like a fragment of the night and -sky. Though too dark to read the actual expression in the eyes, he -detected their gleam of joy and splendor. The whole presentment of the -man was impressive beyond any words that he could find. Massive, yet -charged with swift and alert vitality, he reared there through the night, -his inner self now toweringly manifested. At any other time, and without -the preparation already undergone, the sight might almost have terrified; -now it only uplifted. For in similar fashion, though lesser in degree, -because the mold was smaller, and hesitation checked it, this very -transformation had been going forward within himself. - -The three of them leaned there upon the rails, rails oddly dwindled -now to the size of a toy steamer, while thus the spirit of the dreaming -Earth swam round and through them, awful in power, yet at the same -time gentle, winning, seductive as wild flowers in the spring. And it was -this delicate, hair-like touch of delight, magical with a supreme and -utterly simple innocence, that made the grandeur of the whole experience -still easily manageable, and terror in it all unknown. - -The Irishman stood on the outside, toward the vessel's stern, next -him the father, beyond, the boy. They touched. A current like a river in -flood swept through all three. - -He, too, was caught within those visible extensions of their -personalities; all again, caught within the consciousness of the Earth. -Across the sea they gazed together in silence--waiting. - -It was the Oro passage, where the mainland hills on the west and the Isle -of Tenos on the east draw close together, and the steamer passes for -several miles so near to Greece that the boom of surf upon the shore is -audible. That night, however, the sea lay too still for surf; it -whispered softly in its sleep; and in its sleep, too, listened. They -heard its multitudinous rush of voices as the surge below raced by--a -giant frieze in which the phosphorescence painted dancing forms and -palely luminous faces. Unsubstantial shapes of foam held hands in -continuous array below the waves, lit by soft-sea-lanterns strung -together along the steamer's sides. - -Yet it was not these glimmering shapes the three of them watched, thus -intently silent. The lens of yearning focused not in sight. Down the -great channel at whose opening they stood, leading straight to the -Earth's old central heart, the message of communion would not be a -visual one. The sensitive fringe of their stretched personalities, -contacting thus actually the consciousness of the planet-soul, would -quiver to a reaction of another kind. This point of union, already -affected, would presently report itself, unmistakably, yet not to the -eyes. The increased acuteness of the Irishman's hearing--a kind of -interior hearing--quickly supplied the key. It was that all -three--listened. - -Some primitive sound of Earth would presently vibrate through their -extended beings with an authoritative sweet thunder not to be denied. -By a Voice, a Call, the Earth would tell them that she heard; that -lovingly she was aware of their presence in her heart. She would call -them, with the voice of _one of their own kind_. - -How strange it all was! Enormous in conception, enormous in distance, -scope, stretch! Yet so tiny, intimate, sweet! And this vast splendor was -to report itself by one of the insignificant little channels by which -men, locked in cramped physical bodies, interpret the giant universe--a -trivial sense-impression! That so terrible a communication could reach -the soul via the quivering of a wee material nerve was on a par with that -other grave splendor--that God can exist in the heart of a child. - -Thus, dimly, yet with an authority that shakes the soul, may little -human hearts divine the Immensities that travel with a thunder of great -glory close about their daily life. Through regions of their subliminal -consciousness, which transcends the restricted physical expression of it -called personality as the moisture of the world transcends a drop of -water, deific presences pass grandly to and fro. - -For here, to this wild-hearted Irishman with the forbidden strain of -the _Urmensch_ in his blood, came the sharp and instant revelation that -the Consciousness is not contained skin-tight around the body. It spread -enormously about him, remote, extended; and in some distant tract of -it this strange occurrence took place. The idea of distance and -extension, of course, were merely intellectual concepts, like that of -Time. For what happened, happened near and close, beside, _within_ his -actual physical person. That physical person, with its brain, however, he -realized, was but a fragment of his total Self. A broken piece of the -occurrence filtered through from beyond and fell upon the deck at his -feet. The rest he divined, seeing it whole. Only the little bit, however, -has he found the language to describe. - -And that for which all three listened was already on the way. Forever -it had been "happening," yet only reached them now because they were -ready and open to it. Events upon the physical plane, he grasped, -represented the last feeble expression of things that had happened -interiorly with a vaster power long ago--and are ever happening still. -This Sound they listened for, coming from the Spirit of the Earth, lay -ever close to men's ears, divinely sweet and splendid. It seemed born -somewhere in the heart of the blue gloom that draped the hills of Greece. -Thence, across the peaked mountains, stretched the immense pipe of -starry darkness that carried it toward them as along a channel. Made -possible of approach by the ancient passion of beauty that Greece once -knew, it ran down upon the world into their hearts, direct from the -Being of the Earth. - -With a sudden rush, it grew nearer, swelling with a draught of sound -that sucked whole spaces of sky and sea and stars with it. It emerged. -They heard, all three. - -Above the pulse and tremble of the steamer's engines, above the -surge and gurgle of the sea, a cry swept toward them from the shore. -Long-drawn, sweetly-penetrating, yet with some strident accent of power -and command, this voice of Earth rushed upon them over the quiet -water--then died away again among the mountains and the night. Its -passage through the sky was torrential. The whole pouring flood of it -dipped back with abrupt swiftness into silence. The Irishman understood -that but an echo of its main volume had come through. - -A deep, convulsive movement ran over the great body at his side, and -at once communicated itself to the boy beyond. Father and son -straightened up abruptly as though the same force lifted both; then -stretched down and forwards over the bulwarks. They seemed to shake -themselves free of something. Neither spoke. Something utterly -overwhelming lay in that moment. For the cry was at once of enchanting -sweetness, yet with a deep and dreadful authority that overpowered. It -invited the very soul. - -A moment of silence followed, and the cry was then repeated, thinner, -fainter, already further away. It seemed withdrawn, sunk more deeply -into the night, higher up, too, floating away northwards into remoter -vales and glens that lay beyond the shore-line. Though still a single -cry, there were distinct breaks of utterance in it this time, as of -words. It was, of a kind--speech: a Message, a Summons, a Command that -somehow held entreaty at its heart. - -And this time the appeal in it was irresistible. Father and son started -forwards as though deliberately pulled; while from himself shot outwards -that loosening portion of his being that all the evening had sought -release. The vehicle of his yearnings, passionately summoned, leaped to -the ancient call of the Earth's eternally young life. This vital essence -of his personality, volatile as air and fierce as lightning, flashed -outwards from its hidden prison where it lay choked and smothered by the -weights and measures of modern life. For the beauty and splendor of that -far voice wrung his very heart and set it free. He knew a quasi-physical -wrench of detachment. A wild and tameless glory fused the fastenings -of ages. - -Only the motionless solidity of the great figure beside him prevented -somehow the complete escape, and made him understand that the Call -just then was not for all three of them, especially not for himself. The -parent rose beside him, massive and stable, secure as the hills which -were his true home, and the boy broke suddenly into happy speech which -was wild and singing. - -He looked up swiftly into his parent's steady visage. - -"Father!" he cried in tones that merged half with the wind, half with -the sea, "it is his voice! Chiron calls--!" His eyes shone like stars, -his young face was alight with joy and passion.--"Go, father, _you_, -or--" - -He stopped an instant, catching the Irishman's eyes upon his own -across the form between them. - -"--or you!" he added with a laughter of delight; "_you_ go!" - -The big figure straightened up, standing back a pace from the rails. -A low sound rolled from him that was like an echo of thunder among -hills. With slow, laborious distinctness it broke off into fragments that -were words, with great difficulty uttered, but with a final authority -that rendered them command. - -"No," O'Malley heard, "you--first. And--carry word--that we--are--on -the way." Staring out across the sea and sky he boomed it deeply. -"You--first. We--follow--!" And the speech seemed to flow from the entire -surface of his body rather than from the lips alone. The sea and air -mothered the syllables. Thus might the Night herself have spoken. - -_Chiron_! The word, with its clue of explanation, flamed about him -with a roar. Was this, then, the type of cosmic life to which his -companions, and himself with them, inwardly approximated...? - -The same instant, before O'Malley could move a muscle to prevent -it, the boy climbed the rails with an easy, vaulting motion that was -swift yet oddly spread, and dropped straight down into the sea. He fell; -and as he fell it was as if the passage through the air drew out a part -of him again like smoke. Whether it was due to the flying cloak, or to -some dim wizardry of the shadows, there grew over him an instantaneous -transformation of outline that was far more marked than anything before. -For as the steamer drew onwards, and the body thus passed in its downward -flight close beneath O'Malley's eyes, he saw that the boy was making the -first preparatory motions of swimming,--movements, however, that were not -the horizontal sweep of a pair of human arms, but rather the vertical -strokes of a swimming animal. He pawed the air. - -The surprise of the whole unexpected thing came upon him with a crash -that brought him back effectually again into himself. That part of him, -already half emerged in similar escape, now flashed back sheath-like -within him. The inner catastrophe he dreaded while desiring it, had -not yet completed itself. - -He heard no splash, for the ship was high out of the water, and the -place where the body met the sea already lay far astern; but when the -momentary arrest of his faculties had passed and he found his voice to -cry for help, the father turned upon him like a lion and clapped a great, -encompassing hand upon his mouth. - -"Quiet!" his deep voice boomed. "It is well--and he--is--safe." - -And across the huge and simple visage ran an expression of such supreme -happiness, while in his act and gesture lay such convincing power, that -the Irishman felt himself overborne and forced to acknowledge another -standard of authority that somehow made the whole thing right. To cry -"man overboard," to stop the ship, throw life-buoys and the rest, was not -only unnecessary, but foolish. The boy was safe; it was well with him; he -was not "lost"... - -"See," said the parent's deep voice, breaking in upon his thoughts as -he drew him to one side with a certain vehemence, "See!" - -He pointed downwards. And there, between them, half in the scuppers, -against their very feet, lay the huddled body upon the deck, the -arms outstretched, the face turned upwards to the stars. - - * * * * * - -The bewilderment that followed was like the confusion which exists -between two states of consciousness when the mind passes from sleep -to waking, or _vice versa_. O'Malley lost that power of attention which -enables a man to concentrate on details sufficiently to recall their -exact sequence afterwards with certainty. - -Two things, however, stood out and he tells them briefly enough: first, -that the joy upon the father's face rendered an offer of sympathy -ludicrous; secondly, that Dr. Stahl was again upon the scene with a -promptness which proved him to have been close at hand all the time. - -It was between two and three in the morning, the rest of the passengers -asleep still, but Captain Burgenfelder and the first officer appeared -soon after and an orderly record of the affair was drawn up formally. The -depositions of the father and of himself were duly taken down in -writing, witnessed, and all the rest. - -The scene in the doctor's cabin remains vividly in his mind: the huge -Russian standing by the door--for he refused a seat--incongruously -smiling in contrast to the general gravity, his mind obviously brought -by an effort of concentration to each question; the others seated round -the desk some distance away, leaving him in a space by himself; the -scratching of the doctor's pointed pen; the still, young outline -underneath the canvas all through the long pantomime, lying upon a couch -at the back where the shadows gathered thickly. And then the gust of -fresh wind that came in with a little song as they opened the door at -the end, and saw the crimson dawn reflected in the dewy, shining boards -of the deck. The father, throwing the Irishman a significant and curious -glance, was out to join it on the instant. - -Syncope, produced by excitement, cause unknown, was the scientific -verdict, and an immediate burial at sea the parent's wish. As the sun -rose over the highlands of Asia Minor it was carried into effect. - -But the father's eyes followed not the drop. They gazed with rapt, -intent expression in another direction where the shafts of sunrise sped -across the sea toward the glens and dales of distant Pelion. At the sound -of the plunge he did not even turn his eyes. He pointed, gathering -O'Malley somehow into the gesture, across the Ægean Sea to where the -shores of north-western Arcadia lay below the horizon, raised his arms -with a huge sweep of welcome to the brightening sky, then turned and -went below without a single word. - -For a few minutes, puzzled and perhaps a little awed, the group of -sailors and ship's officers remained standing with bared heads, then -disappeared silently in their turn, leaving the decks to the sunrise and -the wind. - - - - -XXIII - - -But O'Malley did not immediately return to his own cabin; he yielded to -Dr. Stahl's persuasion and dropped into the armchair he had already -occupied more than once, watching his companion's preparations with the -lamp and coffeepot. - -With his eyes, that is, he watched, staring, as men say, absent-mindedly; -for the fact was, only a little bit of him hovered there about his -weary physical frame. The rest of him was off somewhere else across the -threshold--subliminal: below, with the Russian, beyond with the -traveling spirit of the boy; but the major portion, out deep in space, -reclaimed by the Earth. - -So, at least, it felt; for the circulation of blood in his brain ran low -and physical sensation there was almost none. The driving impulse upon -the outlying tracts of consciousness usually submerged had been -tremendous. - -"That time," he heard Stahl saying in an oddly distant voice from -across the cabin, "you were nearly--out--" - -"You heard? You saw it all?" he murmured as in half-sleep. For it was -an effort to focus his mind even upon simple words. - -The reply he hardly caught, though he felt the significant stare of the -man's eye upon him and divined the shaking of his head. His life still -pulsed and throbbed far away outside his normal self. Complete return -was difficult. He felt all over: with the wind and hills and sea, all his -little personal sensations tucked away and absorbed into Nature. In the -Earth he lay, pervading her whole surface, still sharing her vaster life. -With her he moved, as with a greater, higher, and more harmonious -creation than himself. In large measure the cosmic instincts still swept -these quickened fringes of his deep subconscious personality. - -"You know them now for what they are," he heard the doctor saying at the -end of much else he had entirely missed. "The father will be the next to -go, and then--yourself. I warn you before it is too late. Beware! -And--resist!" - -His thoughts, and with them those subtle energies of the soul that are -the vehicles of thought, followed where the boy had gone. Deep streams of -longing swept him. The journey of that spirit, so singularly released, -drew half his forces after it. Thither the bereaved parent and himself -were also bound; and the lonely incompleteness of his life lay wholly now -explained. That cry within the dawn, though actually it had been calling -always, had at last reached him; hitherto he had caught only -misinterpreted echoes of it. From the narrow body it had called him -forth. Another moment and he would have known complete emancipation; and -never could he forget that glorious sensation as the vital essence tasted -half release. Next time the process should complete itself, and he -would--go! - -"Drink this," he heard abruptly in Stahl's grating voice, and saw him -cross the cabin with a cup of steaming coffee. "Concentrate your mind -now upon the things about you here. Return to the present. And tell me, -too, if you can bring yourself to do so," he added, stooping over -him with the cup, "a little of what you experienced. The return, I know, -is pain. But try--try--" - -"Like a little bit of death, yes," murmured the Irishman. "I feel caught -again and caged--small." He could have wept. This ugly little life! - -"Because you've tasted a moment of genuine cosmic consciousness and now -you feel the limitations of normal personality," Stahl added, more -soothingly. He sat down beside him and sipped his own coffee. - -"Dispersed about the whole earth I felt, deliciously extended and -alive," O'Malley whispered with a faint shiver as he glanced about the -little cabin, noticing the small windows and shut door. "Upholstery" -oppressed him. "Now I'm back in prison again." - -There was silence for a moment. Then presently the doctor spoke, as -though he thought aloud, expecting no reply. - -"All great emotions," he said in lowered tones, "tap the extensions of -the personality we now call subconscious, and a man in anger, in love, in -ecstasy of any kind is greater than he knows. But to you has come, -perhaps, the greatest form of all--a definite and instant merging with -the being of the Earth herself. You reached the point where you _felt_ -the spirit of the planet's life. You almost crossed the threshold--your -extension edged into her own. She bruised you, and you knew--" - -"'Bruised'?" he asked, startled at the singular expression into closer -hearing. - -"We are not 'aware' of our interior," he answered, smiling a little, -"until something goes wrong and the attention is focused. A keen -sensation--pain--and you become aware. Subconscious processes then -become consciously recognized. I bruise your lung for instance; you -become conscious of that lung for the first time, and feel it. You gather -it up from the general subconscious background into acute personal -consciousness. Similarly, a word or mood may sting and stimulate some -phase of your consciousness usually too remote to be recognized. Last -night--regions of your extended Self, too distant for most men to realize -their existence at all, contacted the consciousness of the Earth herself. -She bruised you, and _via_ that bruise caught you up into her greater -Self. You experienced a genuine cosmic reaction." - -O'Malley listened, though hardly to the actual words. Behind the -speech, which was in difficult German for one thing, his mind heard -the rushing past of this man's ideas. They moved together along the -same stream of thought, and the Irishman knew that what he thus heard -was true, at any rate, for himself. And at the same time he recognized -with admiration the skill with which this scientific mystic of a -_Schiffsarzt_ sought to lead him back into the safer regions of his -normal state. Stahl did not now oppose or deny. Catching the wave of the -Celt's experience, he let his thought run sympathetically with it, -alongside, as it were, guiding gently and insinuatingly down to earth -again. - -And the result justified this cunning wisdom; O'Malley returned to -the common world by degrees. For it was enchanting to find his amazing -adventure explained even in this partial, speculative way. Who else -among his acquaintances would have listened at all, much less admitted -its possibility? - -"But, why in particular _me_?" he asked. "Can't everybody know these -cosmic reactions you speak of?" It was his intellect that asked the -foolish question. His whole Self knew the answer beforehand. - -"Because," replied the doctor, tapping his saucer to emphasize each -word, "in some way you have retained an almost unbelievable simplicity -of heart--an innocence singularly undefiled--a sort of primal, -spontaneous innocence that has kept you clean and open. I venture even to -suggest that shame, as most men know it, has never come to you at all." - -The words sank down into him. Passing the intellect that would have -criticized, they nested deep within where the intuition knew them true. -Behind the clumsy language that is, he caught the thought. - -"As if I were a saint!" he laughed faintly. - -Stahl shook his head. "Rather, because you live detached," he replied, -"and have never identified your Self with the rubbish of life. The -channels in you are still open to these tides of larger existence. I wish -I had your courage." - -"While others--?" - -The German hesitated a moment. "Most men," he said, choosing his words -with evident care, "are too grossly organized to be aware that these -reactions of a wider consciousness can be possible at all. Their minute -normal Self they mistake for the whole, hence denying even the -experiences of others. 'Our actual personality may be something -considerably unlike that conception of it which is based on our present -terrestrial consciousness--a form of consciousness suited to, and -developed by, our temporary existence here, _but not necessarily more -than a fraction of our total self_. It is quite credible that our entire -personality is never terrestrially manifest.'" Obviously he quoted. The -Irishman had read the words somewhere. He came back more and more into -the world--correlated, that is, the subconscious with the conscious. - -"Yet consciousness apart from the brain is inconceivable," he interposed, -more to hear the reply than to express a conviction. - -Whether Stahl divined his intention or not, he gave no sign. - -"'We cannot say with any security that the stuff called brain is the -only conceivable machinery which mind and consciousness are able to -utilize: though it is true that we know no other.'" The last phrase he -repeated: "'though it is true that we know no other.'" - -O'Malley sank deeper into his chair, making no reply. His mind clutched -at the words "too grossly organized," and his thoughts ran back for a -moment to his daily life in London. He pictured his friends and -acquaintances there; the men at his club, at dinner parties, in the -parks, at theatres; he heard their talk--shooting--destruction of -exquisite life; horses, politics, women, and the rest; yet good, honest, -lovable fellows all. But how did they breathe in so small a world at all? -Practical-minded specimens of the greatest civilization ever known! He -recalled the heavy, dazed expression on the faces of one or two to whom -he had sometimes dared to speak of those wider realms that were so -familiar to himself.... - -"'Though it is true that we know no other,'" he heard Stahl repeating -slowly as he looked down into his cup and stirred the dregs. - -Then, suddenly, the doctor rose and came over to his side. His eyes -twinkled, and he rubbed his hands vigorously together as he spoke. He -laughed. - -"For instance, I have no longer now the consciousness of that coffee -I have just swallowed," he exclaimed, "yet, if it disagreed with me, my -consciousness of it would return." - -"The abnormal states you mean are a symptom of disorder then?" the -Irishman asked, following the analogy. - -"At present, yes," was the reply, "and will remain so until their -correlation with the smaller conscious Self is better understood. These -belligerent Powers of the larger Consciousness are apt to overwhelm as -yet. That time, perhaps, is coming. Already a few here and there have -guessed that the states we call hysteria and insanity, conditions of -trance, hypnotism, and the like, are not too satisfactorily explained." -He peered down at his companion. "If I could study your Self at close -quarters for a few years," he added significantly, "and under various -conditions, I might teach the world!" - -"Thank you!" cried the Irishman, now wholly returned into his ordinary -self. He could think of nothing else to say, yet he meant the words and -gave them vital meaning. He moved across to another chair. Lighting a -cigarette, he puffed out clouds of smoke. He did not desire to be caught -again beneath this man's microscope. And in his mind he had a sudden -picture of the speculative and experimenting doctor being "requested to -sever his connection" with the great Hospital for the sake of the -latter's reputation. But Stahl, in no way offended, was following his own -thoughts aloud, half speaking to himself. - -"... For a being organized as you are, more active in the outlying -tracts of consciousness than in the centers lying nearer home,--a being -like yourself, I say, might become aware of Other Life and other -personalities even more advanced and highly organized than that of the -Earth." - -A strange excitement came upon him, making his eyes shine. He walked to -and fro, O'Malley watching him, a touch of alarm mingled with his -interest. - -"And to think of the great majority that denies because they are--dead!" -he cried. "Smothered! Undivining! Living in that uninspired fragment -which they deem the whole! Ah, my friend,"--and he came abruptly -nearer--"the pathos, the comedy, the pert self-sufficiency of their dull -pride, the crass stupidity and littleness of their denials, in the eyes -of those like ourselves who have actually known the passion of the larger -experience--! For all this modern talk about a Subliminal Self is woven -round a profoundly significant truth, a truth newly discovered and only -just beginning to be understood. We are much greater than we know, and -there is a vast subconscious part of us. But, what is more important -still, there is a super-consciousness as well. The former represents -what the race has discarded; it is past; but the latter stands for what -it reaches out to in the future. The perfect man you dream of perhaps is -he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast -amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value -and will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and -waiting. But it is the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not -the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriously wait -upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism, and the rest." - -"One leads, though, to the other," interrupted O'Malley quickly. "It -is merely a question of the swing of the pendulum?" - -"Possibly," was the laconic reply. - -"They join hands, I mean, behind my back, as it were." - -"Possibly." - -"This stranger, then, may really lead me forward and not back?" - -"Possibly," again was all the answer that he got. - -For Stahl had stopped short, as though suddenly aware that he had -said too much, betraying himself in the sudden rush of interest and -excitement. The face for a moment had seemed quite young, but now -the flush faded, and the light died out from his eyes. O'Malley never -understood how the change came about so quickly, for in a moment, -it seemed, the doctor was calm again, quietly lighting one of his black -cigars over by the desk, peering at him half quizzingly, half mockingly -through the smoke. - -"So I urge you again," he was saying, as though the rest had been some -interlude that the Irishman had half imagined, "to proceed with the -caution of this sane majority, the caution that makes for safety. Your -friend, as I have already suggested to you, is a direct expression of the -cosmic life of the earth. Perhaps, you have guessed by now, the -particular type and form. Do not submit your inner life too completely to -his guidance. Contain your Self--and resist--while it is yet possible." - -And while he sat on there, sipping hot coffee, half listening to the -words that warned of danger while at the same time they cunningly -urged him forwards, it seemed that the dreams of childhood revived in -him with a power that obliterated this present day--the childhood, -however, not of his mere body, but of his spirit, when the world herself -was young.... He, too, had dwelt in Arcady, known the free life of -splendor and simplicity in some Saturnian Reign; for now this dream, -but half remembered, half believed, though eternally yearned for--dream -of a Golden Age untouched by Time, still there, still accessible, -still inhabited, was actually coming true. - -It surely was that old Garden of innocence and joy where the soul, -while all unvexed by a sham and superficial civilization of the mind, -might yet know growth--a realm half divined by saints and poets, but -to the gross majority forgotten or denied. - -The Simple Life! This new interpretation of it at first overwhelmed. -The eyes of his soul turned wild with glory; the passion that o'er-runs -the world in desolate places was his; his, too, the strength of rushing -rivers that coursed their parent's being. He shared the terror of the -mountains and the singing of the sweet Spring rains. The spread wonder -of the woods of the world lay imprisoned and explained in the daily -hurry of his very blood. He understood, because he felt, the power of -the ocean tides; and, flitting to and fro through the tenderer regions of -his extended Self, danced the fragrance of all the wild flowers that ever -blew. That strange allegory of man, the microcosm, and earth, the -macrocosm, became a sudden blazing reality. The feverish distress, -unrest, and vanity of modern life was due to the distance men had -traveled from the soul of the world, away from large simplicity into the -pettier state they deemed so proudly progress. - -Out of the transliminal depths of this newly awakened Consciousness -rose the pelt and thunder of these magical and enormous cosmic -sensations--the pulse and throb of the planetary life where his little -Self had fringed her own. Those untamed profundities in himself that -walked alone, companionless among modern men, suffering an eternal -nostalgia, at last knew the approach to satisfaction. For when the "inner -catastrophe" completed itself and escape should come--that transfer -of the conscious center across the threshold into this vaster region -stimulated by the Earth--all his longings would be housed at last like -homing birds, nested in the gentle places his yearnings all these years -had lovingly built for them--in a living Nature! The fever of modern -life, the torture and unrest of a false, external civilization that -trained the brain while it still left wars and baseness in the heart, -would drop from him like the symptoms of some fierce disease. The god of -speed and mechanism that ruled the world today, urging men at ninety -miles an hour to enter a Heaven where material gain was only a little -sublimated and not utterly denied, would pass for the nightmare that it -really was. In its place the cosmic life of undifferentiated simplicity, -clean and sweet and big, would hold his soul in the truly everlasting -arms. - -And that little German doctor, sitting yonder, enlightened yet afraid, -seeking an impossible compromise--Stahl could no more stop his going -than a fly could stop the rising of the Atlantic tides. - -Out of all this tumult of confused thought and feeling there rose then -the silver face of some forgotten and passionate loveliness. Apparently -it reached his lips, for he heard his own voice murmuring outside him -somewhere across the cabin:-- - -"The gods of Greece--and of the world--" - -Yet the instant words clothed it, the flashing glory went. The idea -plunged back out of sight--untranslatable in language. Thrilled and -sad, he lay back in his chair, watching the doctor and trying to focus -his mind upon what he was saying. But the lost idea still dived and -reared within him like a shining form, yet never showing more than -this radiant point above the surface. The passion and beauty of it...! -He tried no more to tie a label of modern words about its neck. He let -it swim and dive and leap within him uncaught. Only he understood -better why, close to Greece, his friends had betrayed their inner selves, -and why for the lesser of the two, whose bodily cage was not yet fully -clamped and barred by physical maturity, escape, or return rather, had -been possible, nay, had been inevitable. - - - - -XXIV - - -Stahl, he remembers, had been talking for a long time. The general sense -of what he said reached him, perhaps, but certainly not many of the -words. The doctor, it was clear, wished to coax from him the most -intimate description possible of his experience. He put things crudely -in order to challenge criticism, and thus to make his companion's reason -sit in judgment on his heart. If this visionary Celt would let his -intellect pass soberly and dissectingly upon these flaming states of -wider consciousness he had touched, the doctor would have data of real -value for his own purposes. - -But this discriminating analysis was precisely what the Irishman found -impossible. His soul was too "dispersed" to concentrate upon modern terms -and phrases. These in any case dealt only with the fragments of Self that -manifested through brain and body. The rest could be felt only, never -truly described. Since the beginning of the world such transcendental -experiences had never been translatable in the language of "common" -sense; and today, even, when a few daring minds sought a laborious -classification, straining the resources of psychology, the results were -little better than a rather enticing and suggestive confusion. - -In his written account, indeed, he gives no proper report of what Stahl -tried to say. A gaping hiatus appears in the manuscript, with only -asterisks and numbers that referred to pages of his tumbled notebooks. -Following these indications I came across the skeletons of ideas which -perhaps were the raw material, so to say, of these crude and speculative -statements that the German poured out at him across that cabin--blocks -of exaggeration he flung at him, in the hope of winning some critical -and intelligible response. Like the structure of some giant fairy-tale -they read--some toppling scaffolding that needed reduction in scale -before it could be focused for normal human sight. - -"Nature" was really alive for those who believed--and worshipped; for -worship was that state of consciousness which opens the sense and -provides the channel for this singular interior realization. In very -desolate and lonely places, unsmothered and unstained by men as they -exist today, such expressions of the Earth's stupendous, central vitality -were still possible.... The "Russian" himself was some such fragment, -some such cosmic being, strayed down among men in a form outwardly -human, and the Irishman had in his own wild, untamed heart those -same very tender and primitive possibilities which enabled him to know -and feel it. - -In the body, however, he was fenced off--without. Only by the -disentanglement of his primitive self from the modern development -which caged it, could he recover this strange lost Eden and taste in its -fullness the mother-life of the planetary consciousness which called him -back. This dissociation might be experienced temporarily as a subliminal -adventure; or permanently--in death. - -Here, it seemed, was a version of the profound mystical idea that a -man must lose his life to find it, and that the personal self must be -merged in a larger one to know peace--the incessant, burning nostalgia -that dwells in the heart of every religion known to men: escape from -the endless pain of futile personal ambitions and desires for external -things that are unquenchable because never possible of satisfaction. It -had never occurred to him before in so literal and simple a form. It -explained his sense of kinship with the earth and nature rather than -with men.... - -There followed, then, another note which the Irishman had also -omitted from his complete story as I found it--in this MS. that lay -among the dust and dinginess of the Paddington back-room like some -flaming gem in a refuse heap. It was brief but pregnant--the block of -another idea, Fechner's apparently, hurled at him by the little doctor. - -That, just as the body takes up the fact of the bruised lung into its -own general consciousness, lifting it thereby from the submerged, -unrealized state; and just as our human consciousness can be caught up -again as a part of the earth's; so, in turn, the Planet's own vast -personality is included in the collective consciousness of the entire -Universe--all steps and stages of advance to that final and august -Consciousnss of which they are fragments, projections, manifestations in -Time--GOD. - -And the immense conception, at any rate, gave him a curious, -flashing clue to that passionate inclusion which a higher form of -consciousness may feel for the countless lesser manifestations below it; -and so to that love for humanity as a whole that saviors feel.... - -Yet, out of all this deep flood of ideas and suggestions that somehow -poured about him from the mind of this self-contradictory German, -alternately scientist and mystic, O'Malley emerged with his own smaller -and vivid personal delight that he would presently himself--escape: -escape under the guidance of the big Russian into some remote corner -of his own extended Being, where he would enjoy a quasi-merging with -the Earth-life, and know subjectively at least the fruition of all his -yearnings. - -The doctor had phrased it once that a part of him fluid, etheric or -astral, malleable by desire, would escape and attain to this result. But, -after all, the separation of one portion of himself from the main -personality could only mean being conscious it: another part of it--in -a division usually submerged. - -As Stahl so crudely put it, the Earth had bruised him. He would know -in some little measure the tides of her own huge life, his longings, -loneliness, and nostalgia explained and satisfied. He would find that -fair old Garden. He might even know the lesser gods. - - * * * * * - -That afternoon at Smyrna the matter was officially reported, and so -officially done with. It caused little enough comment on the steamer. -The majority of the passengers had hardly noticed the boy at all, much -less his disappearance; and while many of them landed there for Ephesus, -still more left the ship next day at Constantinople. - -The big Russian, though he kept mostly to his own cabin, was closely -watched by the ship's officers, and O'Malley, too, realized that he was -under observation. But nothing happened; the emptied steamer pursued -her quiet way, and the Earth, unrealized by her teeming freight so busy -with their tiny personal aims, rushed forwards upon her glorious journey -through space. - -O'Malley alone realized her presence, aware that he rushed with her -amid a living universe. But he kept his new sensations to himself. The -remainder of the voyage, indeed, across the Black Sea _via_ Samsoun and -Trebizond, is hazy in his mind so far as practical details are concerned, -for he found himself in a dreamy state of deep peace and would sometimes -sit for hours in reverie, only reminded of the present by certain pricks -of annoyance from the outer world. He had returned, of course, to his own -stateroom, yet felt in such close sympathy with his companion that no -outward expression by way of confidence or explanation was necessary. In -their Subconsciousness they were together and at one. - -The pricks of annoyance came, as may be expected, chiefly from Dr. -Stahl, and took the form of variations of "I told you so." The man was -in a state of almost anger, caused half by disappointment, half by -unsatisfied curiosity. His cargo of oil and water would not mix, yet he -knew not which to throw overboard; here was another instance where -facts refused to tally with the beliefs dictated by sane reason; where -the dazzling speculations he played with threatened to win the day and -destroy the compromise his soul loved. - -The Irishman, however, did not resent his curiosity, though he made -no attempt to satisfy it. He allowed him to become authoritative and -professional, to treat him somewhat as a patient. What could it matter -to him, who in a few hours would land at Batoum and go off with his -guide and comrade to some place where--? The thought he could never -see completed in words, for he only knew that the fulfillment of the -adventure would take place--somewhere, somehow, somewhen--in that space -within the soul of which external space is but an image and a figure. -What takes place in the mind and heart are alone the true events; their -outward expression in the shifting and impermanent shapes of matter is -the least real thing in all the world. For him the experience would be -true, real, authoritative--fact in the deepest sense of the word. -Already he saw it "whole." - -Faith asks no travelers' questions--exact height of mountains, length -of rivers, distance from the sea, precise spelling of names, and so -forth. He felt--the quaint and striking simile is in the written -account--like a man hunting for a pillar-box in a strange city--absurdly -difficult to find, as though purposely concealed by the authorities amid -details of street and houses to which the eye is unaccustomed, yet really -close at hand all the time.... - -But at Trebizond, a few hours before Batoum, Dr. Stahl in his zealous -attentions went too far; for that evening he gave his "patient" a -sleeping-draught in his coffee that caused him to lie for twelve hours on -the cabin sofa, and when at length he woke toward noon, the Customs -officers had been aboard since nine o'clock, and most of the passengers -had already landed. - -Among them, leaving no message, the big Russian had also gone -ashore. And, though Stahl may have been actuated by the wisest and -kindest motives, he was not quite prepared for the novel experience with -which it provided him--namely, of hearing an angry Irishman saying -rapidly what he thought of him in a stream of eloquent language that -lasted nearly a quarter of an hour without a break! - - - - -XXV - - -Although Batoum is a small place, and the trains that leave it during -the day are few enough, O'Malley knew that to search for his friend by -the methods of the ordinary detective was useless. It would have been -also wrong. The man had gone deliberately, without attempting to say -good-bye--because, having come together in the real and inner sense, -real separation was not possible. The vital portion of their beings, -thought, feeling, and desire, were close and always would be. Their -bodies, busy at different points of the map among the casual realities -of external life, could make no change in that. And at the right moment -they would assuredly meet again to begin the promised journey. - -Thus, at least, in some fashion peculiarly his own, was the way the -Irishman felt; and this was why, after the first anger with his German -friend, he resigned himself patiently to the practical business he had in -hand. - -The little incident was characteristically revealing, and shows how -firmly rooted in his imaginative temperament was the belief, the -unalterable conviction rather, that his life operated upon an outer and -an inner plane simultaneously, the one ever reacting upon the other. It -was as if he were aware of two separate sets of faculties, subtly linked, -one carrying on the affairs of the physical man in the "practical" world, -the other dealing with the spiritual economy in the subconscious. To -attend to the latter alone was to be a useless dreamer among men, -unpractical, unbalanced; to neglect it wholly for the former was to be -crassly limited, but half alive; to combine the two in effective -co-operation was to achieve that high level of a successful personality, -which some perhaps term genius, some prophet, and others, saint. It -meant, at any rate, to have sources of inspiration within oneself. - -Thus he spent the day completing what was necessary for his simple -outfit, and put up for the night at one of the little hotels that spread -their tables invitingly upon the pavement, so that dinner may be enjoyed -in full view of one of the most picturesque streams of traffic it is -possible to see. - -The sultry, enervating heat of the day had passed and a cool breeze -came shorewards over the Black Sea. With a box of thin Russian -cigarettes before him he lingered over the golden Kakhetian wine and -watched the crowded street. Knowing enough of the language to bargain -smartly for his room, his pillows, sheets, and samovar, he yet could -scarcely compass conversation with the strangers about him. Of Russian -proper, besides, he heard little; there was a Babel of many tongues, -Armenian, Turkish, Georgian, explosive phrases of Swanetian, soft -gliding Persian words, and the sharp or guttural exclamations of the -big-voiced, giant fellows, all heavily armed, who belonged to the -bewildering tribes that dwelt among the mountains beyond. Occasionally -came a broken bit of French or German; but they strayed in, lost and -bizarre, as fragments from some distant or forgotten world. - -Down the pavement, jostling his elbows, strode the constant, gorgeous -procession of curious, wild, barbaric faces, bearded, with hooked -noses, flashing eyes, burkas flowing; cartridge-belts of silver and ivory -gleaming across chests in the glare of the electric light; bashliks of -white, black, and yellow wool upon the head, increasing the stature; -evil-looking Black Sea knives stuck in most belts, rifles swung across -great supple shoulders, long swords trailing; Turkish gypsies, dark and -furtive-eyed, walking softly in leather slippers--of endless and -fascinating variety, many colored and splendid, it all was. From time to -time a droschky with two horses, or a private carriage with three, -rattled noisily over the cobbles at a reckless pace, stopping with the -abruptness of a practiced skater; and officers with narrow belted waists -like those of women, their full-skirted cloaks reaching half-way down -high boots of shining leather, sprang out to pay the driver and take a -vacant table at his side; and once or twice a body of soldiers, several -hundred strong, singing the national songs with a full-throated vigor, -hoarse, wild, somehow half terrible, passed at a swinging gait away into -the darkness at the end of the street, the roar of their barbaric singing -dying away in the distance by the sea where the boom of waves just caught -it. - -And O'Malley loved it all, and "thrilled" as he watched and listened. -From his hidden self within something passed out and joined it. He felt -the wild pulse of energetic life that drove along with the tumult of it. -The savage, untamed soul in him leaped as he saw; the blood ran faster. -Sitting thus upon the bank of the hurrying stream, he knew himself -akin to the main body of the invisible current further out; it drew him -with it, and he experienced a quickening of all his impulses toward some -wild freedom that was mighty--clean--simple. - -Civilian dress was rare, and noticeable when it came. The shipping agents -wore black alpaca coats, white trousers, and modern hats of straw. A few -ship's officers in blue, with official caps gold-braided, passed in and -out like men without a wedding garment, as distressingly out of the -picture as tourists in check knickerbockers and nailed boots moving -through some dim cathedral aisle. O'Malley recognized one or two from -his own steamer, and turned his head the other way. It hurt. He caught -himself thinking, as he saw them, of Stock Exchanges, two-penny-tubes, -Belgravia dinner parties, private views, "small and earlies," musical -comedy, and all the rest of the dismal and meager program. These -harmless little modern uniforms were worse than ludicrous, for they -formed links with the glare and noise of the civilization he had left -behind, the smeared vulgarity of the big cities where men and women -live in their possessions, wasting life in that worship of external -detail they call "progress"... - -A well-known German voice crashed through his dream. - -"Already at the wine! These Caucasian vintages are good; they really -taste of grapes and earth and flowers. Yes, thanks, I'll join you for a -moment if I may. We only lie three days in port and are glad to get -ashore." - -O'Malley called for a second glass, and passed the cigarettes. - -"I prefer my black cigars, thank you," was the reply, lighting one. -"You push on tomorrow, I suppose? Kars, Tiflis, Erzerum, or somewhere -a little wilder in the mountains, eh?" - -"Toward the mountains, yes," the Irishman said. Dr. Stahl was the only -person he could possibly have allowed to sit next him at such a time. He -had quite forgiven him now, and though at first he felt no positive -welcome, the strange link between the two men quickly asserted itself and -welded them together in that odd harmony they knew in spite of all -differences. They could be silent together, too, without distress or -awkwardness, sure test that at least some portion of their personalities -fused. - -And for a long time they remained silent, watching the surge and -movement of the old, old types about them. They sipped the yellow -wine and smoked. The stars came out; the carriages grew less; from far -away floated a deep sonorous echo now and then of the soldiers singing -by their barracks. Sometimes a steamer hooted. Cossacks swung by. -Often some wild cry rang out from a side street. There were heavy, -unfamiliar perfumes in the air. Presently Stahl began talking about the -Revolution of a few years before and the scenes of violence he had -witnessed in these little streets, the shooting, barricades, bombs thrown -into passing carriages, Cossacks charging down the pavements with -swords drawn, shouting and howling. O'Malley listened with a part of -his mind at any rate. The rest of him was much further away.... He -was up among the mountain fastnesses. Already, it seemed, he knew the -secret places of the mist, the lair of every running wind.... - -Two tall mountain tribesmen swaggered past close to their table; the -thick grey burkas almost swept their glasses. They walked magnificently -with easy, flowing stride, straight from the hips. - -"The earth here," said O'Malley, taking advantage of a pause in the -other's chatter, "produces some splendid types. Look at those two; they -make one think of trees walking--blown along bodily before a wind." -He watched them with admiration as they swung off and disappeared -among the crowd. - -Dr. Stahl, glancing keenly at him, laughed a little. - -"Yes," he said; "brave, generous fellows too as a rule, who will shoot -you for a pistol that excites their envy, yet give their life to save one -of their savage dogs. They're still--natural," he added after a -moment's hesitation; "still unspoiled. They live close to Nature with a -vengeance. Up among the Ossetians on the high saddles you'll find true -Pagans who worship trees, sacrifice blood, and offer bread and salt to -the nature-deities." - -"Still?" asked O'Malley, sipping his wine. - -"Still," replied Stahl, following his example. - -Over the glasses' rims their eyes met. Both smiled, though neither -quite knew why. The Irishman, perhaps, was thinking of the little city -clerks he knew at home, pigeon-breasted, pale-faced, under-sized. One -of these big men, so full of rushing, vigorous life, would eat a dozen at -a sitting. - -"There's something here the rest of the world has lost," he murmured -to himself. But the doctor heard him. - -"You feel it?" he asked quickly, his eyes brightening. "The awful, -primitive beauty--?" - -"I feel--something, certainly," was the cautious answer. He could -not possibly have said more just then; yet it seemed as though he heard -far echoes of that voice that had been first borne to his ears across the -blue Ægean. In the gorges of these terrible mountains it surely sounded -still. These men must know it too. - -"The spell of this strange land will never leave you once you've felt -it," pursued the other quietly, his voice deepening. "Even in the towns -here--Tiflis, Kutais--I have felt it. Hereabouts is the cradle of the -human race, they say, and the people have not changed for thousands -of years. Some of them you'll find"--he hunted for a word, then said -with a curious, shrugging gesture, "terrific." - -"Ah--" said the Irishman, lighting a fresh cigarette from the dying -stump so clumsily that the trembling of the hand was noticeable. - -"And akin most likely," said Stahl, thrusting his face across the table -with a whispering tone, "to that--man--who--tempted you." - -O'Malley did not answer. He drank the liquid golden sunshine in his -glass; his eyes lifted to the stars that watched above the sea; between -the surge of human figures came a little wind from the grim, mysterious -Caucasus beyond. He turned all tender as a child, receiving as with a -shock of sudden strength and sweetness a thousand intimate messages from -the splendid mood of old Mother-Earth who here expressed herself in such -a potent breed of men and mountains. - -He heard the doctor's voice still speaking, as from a distance though:-- - -"For here they all grow with her. They do not fight her and resist. She -pours freely through them; there is no opposition. The channels still lie -open; ... and they share her life and power." - -"That beauty which the modern world has lost," repeated the other -to himself, lingering over the words, and wondering why they expressed -so little of what he really meant. - -"But which will never--_can_ never come again," Stahl completed the -sentence. There was a wistful, genuine sadness in his voice and eyes, and -the sympathy touched the inflammable Celt with fire. It was ever thus -with him. The little man opposite, with the ragged beard, and the bald, -domed head gleaming in the electric light, had laid a card upon the -table, showing a bit of his burning heart. The generous Irishman -responded like a child, laying himself bare. So hungry was he for -comprehension. - -"Men have everywhere else clothed her fair body with their smothering, -ugly clothing and their herded cities," he burst out, so loud that -the Armenian waiter sidled up, thinking he called for wine. "But here -she lies naked and unashamed, sweet in divinity made simple. By Jove! -I tell you, doctor, it burns and sweeps me with a kind of splendid -passion that drowns my little shame-faced personality of the twentieth -century. I could run out and worship--fall down and kiss the grass and -soil and sea--!" - -He drew back suddenly like a wounded animal; his face turned scarlet, -as though he knew himself convicted of an hysterical outburst. Stahl's -eyes had changed even as he spoke the flaming words that struggled so -awkwardly to seize his mood of rapture--a thought the Earth poured -through him for a moment. The bitter, half-mocking smile lay in them, -and on the lips the cold and critical expression of the other Stahl, -skeptic and science-man. A revulsion of feeling caught them both. But to -O'Malley came the thought that once again he had been drawn--was -being coaxed for examination beneath the microscope. - -"The material here," Stahl said presently, with the calm tones of a -dispassionate diagnosis, "is magnificent as you say, uncivilized without -being merely savage, untamed, yet far from crude barbarism. When the -progress of the age gets into this land the transformation will be grand. -When Russia lets in culture, when modern improvements have developed -her resources and trained the wild human forces into useful channels...." - -He went on calmly by the yard, till it was all the Irishman could do -not to dash the wine-glass in his face. - -"Remember my words when you are up in the lonely mountains," he -concluded at length, smiling his queer sardonic smile, "and keep yourself -in hand. Put on the brakes when possible. Your experience will thus -have far more value." - -"And you," replied O'Malley bluntly, so bluntly it was almost rudeness, -"go back to Fechner, and try to save your compromising soul before -it is too late--" - -"Still following those lights that do mislead the morn," Stahl added -gently, breaking into English for a phrase he apparently loved. They -laughed and raised their glasses. - -A long pause came which neither cared to break. The streets were -growing empty, the personality of the mysterious little Black Sea port -folding away into the darkness. The wilder element had withdrawn -behind the shuttered windows. There came a murmur of the waves, but -the soldiers no longer sang. The droschkys ceased to rattle past. The -night flowed down more thickly from the mountains, and the air, moist -with that malarial miasma which makes the climate of this reclaimed -marsh whereon Batoum is built so unhealthy, closed unpleasantly about -them. The stars died in it. - -"Another glass?" suggested Stahl. "A drink to the gods of the Future, -and till we meet again, on your return journey, eh?" - -"I'll walk with you to the steamer," was the reply. "I never care for -much wine. And the gods of the Future will prefer my usual offering, I -think--imaginative faith." - -The doctor did not ask him to explain. They walked down the middle -of the narrow streets. No one was about, nor were there lights in many -windows. Once or twice from an upper story came the faint twanging -of a balalaika against the drone of voices, and occasionally they passed -a little garden where figures outlined themselves among the trees, with -the clink of glasses, laughter of men and girls, and the glowing tips of -cigarettes. - -They turned down toward the harbor where the spars and funnels of -the big steamers were just visible against the sky, and opposite the -unshuttered window of a shop--one of those modern shops that oddly -mar the town with assorted German tinware, Paris hats, and oleographs -indiscriminately mingled--Stahl stopped a moment and pointed. They -moved up idly and looked in. From the shadows of the other side, well -hidden, an armed patrol eyed them suspiciously, though they were not -aware of it. - -"It was before a window like this," remarked Stahl, apparently casually, -"that I once in Tiflis overheard two mountain Georgians talking -together as they examined a reproduction of a modern picture--Böcklin's -'Centaur.' They spoke in half whispers, but I caught the trend of -what they said. You know the picture, perhaps?" - -"I've seen it somewhere, yes," was the short reply. "But what were they -saying?" He strove to keep his voice commonplace and casual like his -companion's. - -"Oh, just discussing it together, but with a curious stretched interest," -Stahl went on. "One asked, 'What does it say?' and pointed to the -inscription underneath. They could not read. For a long time they stared -in silence, their faces grave and half afraid. 'What is it?' repeated the -first one, and the other, a much older man, heavily bearded and of giant -build, replied low, 'It's what I told you about'; there was awe in his -tone and manner; 'they still live in the big valley of the rhododendrons -beyond--' mentioning some lonely uninhabited region toward Daghestan; -'they come in the spring, and are very swift and roaring....You must -always hide. To see them is to die. But they cannot die; they are of the -mountains. They are older, older than the stones. And the dogs will warn -you, or the horses, or sometimes a great sudden wind, though you must -never shoot.' They stood gazing in solemn wonder for minutes...till at -last, realizing that their silence was final, I moved away. There were -manifestations of life in the mountains, you see, that they had seen and -knew about--old forms akin to that picture apparently." - -The patrol came out of his shadows, and Stahl quickly drew his -companion along the pavement. - -"You have your passport with you?" he asked, noticing the man behind -them. - -"It went to the police this afternoon. I haven't got it back yet." -O'Malley spoke thickly, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. How -much he welcomed that casual interruption of the practical world he -could never explain or tell. For the moment he had felt like wax in the -other's hands. He had dreaded searching questions, and felt unspeakably -relieved. A minute more and he would have burst into confession. - -"You should never be without it," the doctor added. "The police here -are perfect fiends, and can cause you endless inconvenience." - -O'Malley knew it all, but gladly seized the talk and spun it out, asking -innocent questions while scarcely listening to the answers. They -distanced the patrol and neared the quays and shipping. In the darkness -of the sky a great line showed where the spurs of the Lesser Caucasus -gloomed huge and solemn to the East and West. At the gangway of the -steamer they said good-bye. Stahl held the Irishman's hand a moment -in his own. - -"Remember, when you know temptation strong," he said gravely, though a -smile was in the eyes, "the passwords that I now give you: Humanity and -Civilization." - -"I'll try." - -They shook hands warmly enough. - -"Come home by this steamer if you can," he called down from the deck. -"And keep to the middle of the road on your way back to the hotel. It's -safer in a town like this." O'Malley divined the twinkle in his -eyes as he said it. "Forgive my many sins," he heard finally, "and when -we meet again, tell me your own...." The darkness took the sentence. -But the word the Irishman took home with him to the little hotel was -the single one--Civilization: and this, owing to the peculiar -significance of intonation and accent with which this bewildering and -self-contradictory being had uttered it. - - - - -XXVI - - -He walked along the middle of the street as Stahl had advised. He -would have done so in any case, unconsciously, for he knew these towns -quite as well as the German did. Yet he did not walk alone. The entire -Earth walked with him, and personal danger was an impossibility. A -dozen ruffians might attack him, but none could "take" his life. - -How simple it all seemed, yet how utterly beyond the reach of -intelligible description to those who have never felt it--this sudden -surge upwards, downwards, all around and about of the vaster -consciousness amid which the sense of normal individuality seemed but a -tiny focused point. That loss of personality he first dreaded as an -"inner catastrophe" appeared to him now for what it actually was--merely -an extinction of some phantasmal illusion of self into the only true -life. Here, upon the fringe of this wonder-region of the Caucasus, the -spirit of the Earth still manifested as of old, reached out lovingly to -those of her children who were simple enough to respond, ready to fold -them in and heal them of the modern, racking fevers which must otherwise -destroy them.... The entire sky of soft darkness became a hand that -covered him, and stroked him into peace; the perfume that wafted down -that narrow street beside him was the single, enveloping fragrance of -the whole wide Earth herself; he caught the very murmur of her splendid -journey through the stars. The certitude of some state of boundless being -flamed, roaring and immense, about his soul.... - -And when he reached his room, a little cell that shut out light and -air, he met that sinister denial of the simple life which, for him at -least, was the true Dweller on the Threshold. Crashing in to it he -choked, as it were, and could have cried aloud. It gripped and caught him -by the throat--the word that Stahl--Stahl who understood even while he -warned and mocked and hesitated himself--had flung so tauntingly -upon him from the decks--Civilization. - -Upon his table lay by chance--the Armenian hotel-keeper had -evidently unearthed it for his benefit--a copy of a London halfpenny -paper, a paper that feeds the public with the ugliest details of all the -least important facts of life by the yard, inventing others when the -supply is poor. He read it over vaguely, with a sense of cold distress -that was half pain, half nausea. Somehow it stirred his sense of humor; -he returned slowly to his normal, littler state. But it was not the -contrast which made him smile; rather was it the chance juxtaposition of -certain of the contents; for on the page facing the accounts of railway -accidents, of people burned alive, explosions, giant strikes, crumpled -air-men and other countless horrors which modern inventions offered upon -the altar of feverish Progress, he read a complacently boastful leader -that extolled the conquest of Nature men had learned _by speed_. The -ability to pass from one point to another across the skin of the globe in -the least possible time was sign of the development of the human soul. - -The pompous flatulence of the language touched bathos. He thought -of the thousands who had read both columns and preened themselves -upon that leader. He thought how they would pride themselves upon -the latest contrivance for speeding their inert bodies from one point to -another "annihilating distance"; upon being able to get from suburbia -to the huge shops that created artificial wants, then filled them; from -the pokey villas with their wee sham gardens to the dingy offices; from -dark airless East End rooms to countless factories that pour out -semifraudulent, unnecessary wares upon the world, explosives and weapons -to destroy another nation, or cheapjack goods to poison their own--all -in a few minutes less than they could do it the week before. - -And then he thought of the leisure of the country folk and of those -who knew how to be content without external possessions, to watch the -sunset and the dawn with hearts that sought realities; sharing the -noble slowness of the seasons, the gradual growth of flowers, trees, -and crops, the unhurried dignity of Nature's grand procession, the -repose-in-progress of the Mother-Earth. - -The calmness of the unhastening Earth once more possessed his soul -in peace. He hid the paper, watching the quiet way the night beyond -his window buried it from sight... - -And through that open window came the perfume and the mighty hand of -darkness slowly. It seemed to this imaginative Irishman that he caught a -sound of awful laughter from the mountains and the sea, a laughter that -brought, too, a wave of sighing--of deep and old-world sighing. - -And before he went to sleep he took an antidote in the form of a -page from that book that accompanied all his travels, a book which was -written wholly in the open air because its message refused to come to -the heart of the inspired writer within doors, try as he would, the "sky -especially containing for me the key, the inspiration--" - -And the fragment that he read expressed a little bit of his own thought -and feeling. The seer who wrote it looked ahead, naming it "After -Civilization," whereas he looked back. But they saw the same vision; -the confusion of time was nothing:-- - -In the first soft winds of spring, while snow yet lay on the ground-- -Forth from the city into the great woods wandering, -Into the great silent white woods where they waited in their beauty and - majesty -For man their companion to come: -There, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilizations, -Slowly out of the ruins of the past - -Out of the litter and muck of a decaying world, -Lo! even so -I saw a new life arise. -O sound of waters, jubilant, pouring, pouring--O hidden song in the - hollows! -Secret of the Earth, swelling, sobbing to divulge itself! -Slowly, building, lifting itself up atom by atom, -Gathering itself round a new center--or rather round the world—old - center once more revealed-- -I saw a new life, a new society, arise. -Man I saw arising once more to dwell with Nature; -(The old old story--the prodigal son returning, so loved, -The long estrangement, the long entanglement in vain things)-- -The child returning to its home--companion of the winter woods once - more-- -Companion of the stars and waters--hearing their words at first-hand - (more than all science ever taught)-- -The near contact, the dear dear mother so close--the twilight sky - and the young tree-tops against it; -The few needs, the exhilarated radiant life--the food and population - question giving no more trouble; -No hurry more, no striving one to over-ride the other: - ... man the companion of Nature. -Civilization behind him now--the wonderful stretch of the past; -Continents, empires, religions, wars, migrations--all gathered up in him; -The immense knowledge, the vast winged powers--to use or not to use--... - -And as he fell asleep at length it seemed there came a sound of hushed -huge trampling underneath his window, and that when he rose to listen, -his big friend from the steamer led him forth into the darkness, that -those shapes of Cloud and Wind he now so often saw, companioned them -across the heights of the night toward some place in the distant -mountains where light and flowers were, and all his dream of years most -exquisitely fulfilled.... - -He slept. And through his sleep there dropped the words of that old -tribesman from the wilderness: "They come in the spring... and are -very swift and roaring. They are older, older than the stones. They -cannot die... they are of the mountains, and you must hide." - -But the dream-consciousness knows no hiding; and though memory -failed to report with detail in the morning, O'Malley woke refreshed -and blessed, knowing that companionship awaited him, and that once -he found the courage to escape completely, the Simple Life of Earth -would claim him in full consciousness. - -Stahl with his little modern "Intellect" was no longer there to hinder -and prevent. - - - - -XXVII - -"Far, very far, steer by my star, -Leaving the loud world's hurry and clamor, -In the mid-sea waits you, maybe, -The Isles of Glamour, where Beauty reigns. -From coasts of commerce and myriad-marted -Towns of traffic by wide seas parted, -Past shoals unmapped and by reefs uncharted, -The single-hearted my isle attains. - -"Each soul may find faith to her mind, -Seek you the peace of the groves Elysian, -Or the ivy twine and the wands of vine, -The Dionysian, Orphic rite? -To share the joy of the Maenad's leaping -In frenzied train thro' the dusk glen sweeping, -The dew-drench'd dance and the star-watch'd sleeping, -Or temple keeping in vestal white? - -"Ye who regret suns that have set, -Lo, each god of the ages golden, -Here is enshrined, ageless and kind, -Unbeholden the dark years through. -Their faithful oracles yet bestowing, -By laurels whisper and clear streams flowing, -Or the leafy stir of the Gods' own going, -In oak trees blowing, may answer you!" - ---From PEREGRINA'S SONG - - -For the next month Terence O'Malley possessed his soul in patience; -he worked, and the work saved him. That is to say it enabled him to -keep what men call "balanced." Stahl had--whether intentionally or -not he was never quite certain--raised a tempest in him. More accurately, -perhaps, he had called it to the top, for it had been raging deep -down ever since he could remember, or had begun to think. - -That the earth might be a living, sentient organism, though too vast -to be envisaged as such by normal human consciousness, had always been a -tenet of his imagination's creed. Now he knew it true, as a dinner-gong -is true. That deep yearnings, impossible of satisfaction in the external -conditions of ordinary life, could know subjective fulfillment in the -mind, had always been for him poetically true, as for any other poet: now -he realized that it was literally true for some outlying tract of -consciousness usually inactive, termed by some transliminal. Spiritual -nostalgia provided the channel, and the transfer of consciousness -to this outlying tract, involving, of course, a trance condition of -the usual self, indicated the way--that was all. - -Again, his mystical temperament had always seen objects as forces -which from some invisible center push outwards into visible shape--as -bodies: bodies of trees, stones, flowers, men, women, animals; and -others but partially pushed outwards, still invisible to limited physical -sight at least, either too huge, too small, or too attenuated for vision. -Whereas now, as a result of Stahl and Fechner combined, it flamed into -him that this was positively true; more--that there was a point in his -transliminal consciousness where he might "contact" these forces before -they reached their cruder external expression as bodies. Nature, in this -sense, had always been for him alive, though he had allowed himself -the term by a long stretch of poetic sympathy; but now he knew that it -was actually true, because objects, landscapes, humans, and the rest, -were verily aspects of the collective consciousness of the Earth, moods -of her spirit, phases of her being, expressions of her deep, pure, -passionate "heart"--projections of herself. - -He pondered lingeringly over this. Common words revealed their open faces -to him. He saw the ideas behind language, saw them naked. Repetition had -robbed them of so much that now became vital, like Bible phrases that too -great familiarity in childhood kills for all subsequent life as -meaningless. His eyes were opened perhaps. He took a flower into his mind -and thought about it; really thought; meditated lovingly. A flower was -literally projected by the earth so far as its form was concerned. Its -roots gathered soil and earth-matter, changing them into leaves and -blossoms; its leaves again, took of the atmosphere, also a part of the -earth. It was projected by the earth, born of her, fed by her, and at -"death" returned into her. But this was its outward and visible form -only. The flower, for his imaginative mind, was a force made visible -as literally as a house was a force the mind of the architect made -visible. In the mind, or consciousness of the Earth this flower first lay -latent as a dream. Perhaps, in her consciousness, it nested as that which -in us corresponds to a little thought.... And from this he leaped, as the -way ever was with him, to bigger "projections"--trees, atmosphere, -clouds, winds, some visible, some invisible, and so to a deeper yet -simpler comprehension of Fechner's thundering conception of human beings -as projections. Was he, then, literally, a child of the Earth, mothered -by the whole magnificent planet...? All the world akin--that seeking for -an eternal home in every human heart explained...? And were there--had -there been rather--these other, vaster projections Stahl had adumbrated -with his sudden borrowed stretch of vision--forces, thoughts, moods of -her hidden life invisible to sight, yet able to be felt and known -interiorly? - -That "the gods" were definitely knowable Powers, accessible to any -genuine worshipper, had ever haunted his mind, thinly separated only -from definite belief: now he understood that this also had been true, -though only partially divined before. For now he saw them as the rare -expressions of the Earth's in the morning of her life. That he might ever -come to know them close made him tremble with a fearful joy, the idea -flaming across his being with a dazzling brilliance that brought him -close to that state of consciousness termed ecstasy. And that in certain -unique beings, outwardly human like his friend, there might still survive -some primitive expression of the Earth-Soul, lesser than the gods, and -intermediate as it were, became for him now a fact--wondrous, -awe-inspiring, even holy, but still a fact that he could grasp. - -He had found one such; and Stahl, by warnings that fought with urging -invitation at the same time, had confirmed it. - -It was singular, he reflected, how worship had ever turned for him a -landscape or a scene enchantingly alive. Worship, he now understood, -of course invited "the gods," and was the channel through which their -manifestation became possible to the soul. All the gods, then, were -accessible in this interior way, but Pan especially--in desolate places -and secret corners of a wood.... He remembered dimly the Greek idea -of worship in the Mysteries: that the worshipper knew actual temporary -union with his deity in ecstasy, and at death went permanently into his -sphere of being. He understood that worship was au fond a desire for -loss of personal life--hence its subtle joy; and a fear lest it be -actually accomplished--whence its awe and wonder. - -Some glorious, winged thing moved now beside him; it held him by -the hand. The Earth possessed him; and the whole adventure, so far as -he can make it plain, was an authoritative summons to the natural, -Simple Life. - -For the next month, therefore, O'Malley, unhurrying, blessed with a -deeper sense of happiness than he had ever known before, dismissed -the "tempest" from his surface consciousness, and set to work to gather -the picturesque impressions of strange places and strange peoples that -the public liked to read about in occasional letters of travel. And by -the time May had passed into June he had moved up and down the Caucasus, -observing, learning, expanding, and gathering in the process through -every sense--through the very pores of his skin almost--draughts of a new -and abundant life that is to be had there merely for the asking. - -That modification of the personality which comes even in cities to all -but the utterly hidebound--so that a man in Rome finds himself not quite -the same as he was in London or in Paris a few days before--went forward -in him on a profounder scale than anything he had known hitherto. Nature -fed, stimulated and called him with a passionate intimacy that destroyed -all sense of loneliness, and with a vehement directness of attack that -simply charged him to the brim with a new joy of living. His vitality, -powers, even his physical health, stood at their best and highest. The -country laid its spell upon him, in a word; and if he expresses it thus -with some intensity it was because life came to him so. His record is the -measure of his vision. Those who find exaggeration in it merely confess -thereby their own smaller capacity of living. - -Here, as he wandered to and fro among these proud, immense, secluded -valleys, through remote and untamed forests, and by the banks of wild -rivers that shook their flying foam across untrodden banks, he wandered -at the same time deeper and ever deeper into himself, toward a point -where he lost touch with all that constituted him "modern," or held him -captive in the spirit of today. Nearer and ever nearer he moved into some -tremendous freedom, some state of innocence and simplicity that, while -gloriously unrestrained, yet knew no touch of license. Dreams had -whispered of it; childhood had fringed its frontiers; longings had even -mapped it faintly to his mind. But now he breathed its very air and knew -it face to face. The Earth surged wonderfully about him. - -With his sleeping-bag upon a small Caucasian horse, a sack to hold -his cooking things, a pistol in his belt, he wandered thus for days, -sleeping beneath the stars, seeing the sunset and the dawn, drenched in -new strength and wonder all the time. Here he touched deeper reaches -of the Earth that spoke of old, old things, that yet were still young -because they knew not change. He walked in the morning of the world, -through her primal fire and dew, when all was a first and giant garden. - -The advertised splendors of other lands, even of India, Egypt, and -the East, seemed almost vulgar beside this country that had somehow -held itself aloof, unstained and clean. The civilization of its little -towns seemed but a coated varnish that an hour's sun would melt away; the -railway, crawling along the flanks of the great range, but a ribbon of -old iron pinned on that, with the first shiver of those giant sides, -would split and vanish. - -Here, where the Argonauts once landed, the Golden Fleece still shone o' -nights in the depths of the rustling beech woods; along the shores of -that old Phasis their figures might still be seen, tall Jason in the -lead, erect and silvery, passing o'er the shining, flowered fields upon -their quest of ancient beauty. Further north from this sunny Colchian -strand rose the peak of Kasbek, gaunt and desolate pyramid of iron, -"sloping through five great zones of climate," whence the ghost of -Prometheus still gazed down from his "vast frozen precipice" upon a world -his courage would redeem. For somewhere here was the cradle of the human -race, fair garden of some Edened life before the "Fall," when the Earth -sang for joy in her first, golden youth, and her soul expressed itself in -mighty forms that remain for lesser days but a faded hierarchy of -visioned gods. - -A living Earth went with him everywhere, with love that never breathed -alarm. It seemed he felt her very thoughts within himself--thoughts, -however, that now no longer married with a visible expression as shapes. - -Among these old-world tribes and peoples with their babble of difficult -tongues, wonder and beauty, terror and worship, still lay too deeply -buried to have as yet externalized themselves in mental forms as legend, -myth, and story. In the blood ran all their richness undiluted. Life was -simple, full charged with an immense delight. At home little cocksure -writers in little cocksure journals, pertly modern and enlightened, might -dictate how far imaginative vision and belief could go before they -overstepped the limits of an artificial schedule; but here "everything -possible to be believed was still an image of truth," and the stream of -life flowed deeper than all mere intellectual denials. - -A little out of sight, but thinly veiled, the powers that in this haunted -corner of the earth, too strangely neglected, pushed outwards into men -and trees, into mountains, flowers, and the rest, were unenslaved and -intensely vital. In his blood O'Malley knew the primal pulses of the -world. - -It was irresistibly seductive. Whether he slept with the Aryan -Ossetians upon the high ridges of the central range, or shared the stone -huts of the mountain Jews, unchanged since Bible days, beyond the -Suram heights, there came to all his senses the message of that Golden -Age his longings ever sought--the rush and murmur of the _Urwelt_ -calling. - -And so it was, about the first week in June that lean, bronzed, and -in perfect physical condition, this wandering Irishman found himself -in a little Swanetian hamlet beyond Alighir, preparing with a Georgian -peasant-guide to penetrate yet deeper into the mountain recesses and -feed his heart with what he found of loneliness and beauty. - -This region of Imerethia, bordering on Mingrelia, is smothered -beneath an exuberance of vegetation almost tropical, blue and golden -with enormous flowers, tangled with wild vines, rich with towering soft -beech woods, and finally, in the upper sections, ablaze with leagues of -huge rhododendron trees in blossom that give whole mountain-sides -the aspect of a giant garden, flowering amid peaks that even dwarf the -Alps. For here the original garden of the world survives, run wild with -pristine loveliness. The prodigality of Nature is bewildering, almost -troubling. There are valleys, rarely entered by the foot of man, where -monstrous lilies, topping a man on foot and even reaching to his -shoulder on horseback, have suggested to botanists in their lavish -luxuriance a survival of the original flora of the world. A thousand -flowers he found whose names he had never heard of, their hues and -forms as strangely lovely as those of another planet. The grasses alone -in scale and mass were magnificent. While, in and out of all this -splendor, less dense and voluminous only than the rhododendron -forests, ran scattered lines of blazing yellow--the crowding clusters of -azalea bushes that scented the winds beyond belief. - -Beyond this region of extravagance in size and color, there ran -immense bare open slopes of smooth turf that led to the foot of the -eternal snowfields, with, far below, valleys of prodigious scale and -steepness that touched somehow with disdain all memory of other -mountain ranges he had ever known. - -And here it was this warm June evening--June 15th it was--while packing -his sack with cheese and maize-flour in the dirty yard of a so-called -"post-house," more hindered than helped by his Georgian guide, that he -realized the approach of a familiar, bearded figure. The figure emerged. -There was a sudden clutch and lift of the heart ... then a rush of wild -delight. There stood his Russian steamer-friend, part of the scale and -splendor, as though grown out of the very soil. He occupied in a flash -the middle of the picture. He gave it meaning. He was part of it, exactly -as a tree or big grey boulder were part of it. - - - - -XXVIII - -"Seasons and times; Life and Fate--all are remarkably rhythmic, metric, -regular throughout. In all crafts and arts, in all machines, in organic -bodies, in our daily occupations everywhere there is rhythm, meter, -accent, melody. All that we do with a certain skill unnoticed, we do -rhythmically. There is rhythm everywhere; it insinuates itself -everywhere. All mechanism is metric, rhythmic. There must be more in it -than this. Is it merely the influence of inertia?" - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - - -Notwithstanding the extent and loneliness of this wild country, -coincidence seemed in no way stretched by the abrupt appearance; for -in a sense it was not wholly unexpected. There had been certain -indications that the meeting again of these two was imminent. The -Irishman had never doubted they would meet. But something more than mere -hints or warnings, it seemed, had prepared him. - -The nature of these warnings, however, O'Malley never fully disclosed. -Two of them he told to me by word of mouth, but there were others he -could not bring himself to speak about at all. Even the two he mentioned -do not appear in his written account. His hesitation is not easy to -explain, unless it be that language collapsed in the attempt to describe -occurrences so remote from common experience. This may be so, although he -grappled not unsuccessfully with the rest of the amazing adventure. At -any rate I could never coax from him more than the confession that there -_were_ other things that had brought him hints. Then came a laugh, a -shrug of the shoulders, an expression of confused bewilderment in eyes -and manner and--silence. - -The two he spoke of I report as best I can. On the roof of that London -apartment-house where so many of our talks took place beneath the -stars and to the tune of bustling modern traffic, he told them to me. -Both were consistent with his theory that he was becoming daily more -active in some outlying portion of his personality--knowing experiences -in a region of extended consciousness stimulated so powerfully -by his strange new friend. - -Both, moreover, brought him one and the same conviction that he -was no longer--alone. For some days past he had realized this. More -than his peasant guide accompanied him. He was both companioned -and--observed. - -"A dozen times," he said, "I thought I saw him, and a dozen times I -was mistaken. But my mind looked for him. I knew that he was -somewhere close." He compared the feeling to that common experience -of the streets when a friend, not known to be near, or even expected, -comes abruptly into the thoughts, so that numberless individuals may -trick the sight with his appearance before he himself comes suddenly -down the pavement. His approach has reached the mind before his mere -body turns the corner. "Something in me was aware of his approach," -he added, "as though his being were sending out feelers in advance to -find me. They reached me first, I think"--he hesitated briefly, hunting -for a more accurate term he could not find--"in dream." - -"You dreamed that he was coming, then?" - -"It came first in dream," he answered; "only when I woke the dream -did not fade; it passed over into waking consciousness, so that I could -hardly tell where the threshold lay between the two. And, meanwhile, I -was always expecting to see him at every turn of the trail almost; a -little higher up the mountain, behind a rock, or standing beside a tree, -just as in the end I actually did see him. Long before he emerged in this -way, he had been close about me, guiding, waiting, watching." - -He told it as a true thing he did not quite expect me to believe. Yet, -in a sense, _his_ sense, I could and did believe it. It was so wholly -consistent with the tenor of his adventure and the condition of abnormal -receptivity of mind. For his stretched consciousness was in a state of -white sensitiveness whereon the tenderest mental force of another's -thought might well record its signature. Acutely impressionable he was -all over. Physical distance was of as little, or even of less, account to -such forces as it is to electricity. - -"But it was more than the Russian who was close," he added quietly -with one of those sentences that startled me into keen attention. "He -was there--with others--of his kind." - -And then, hardly pausing to take breath, he plunged, as his manner -was, full tilt into the details of this first experience that thrilled my -hedging soul with an astonishing power of conviction. As always when -his heart was in the words, the scenery about us faded and I lived the -adventure with him. The cowled and hooded chimneys turned to trees, -the stretch of dim star-lit London Park became a deep Caucasian vale, -the thunder of the traffic was the roaring of the snow-fed torrents. The -very perfume of strange flowers floated in the air. - -They had been in their blankets, he and his peasant guide, for hours, -and a moon approaching the full still concealed all signs of dawn, when -he woke out of deep sleep with the odd sensation that it was only a part -of him that woke. One portion of him was in the body, while another -portion was elsewhere, manifesting with ease and freedom in some state -or region whither he had traveled in his sleep--where, moreover, he -had not been alone. - -And close about him in the trees was--movement. Yes! Through and -between the scattered trunks he saw it still. - -With eyes a little dazed, the active portion of his brain perceived this -processing movement passing to and fro across the glades of moonlight -beneath the steady trees. For there was no wind. The shadows of the -branches did not stir. He saw swift running shapes, vigorous yet silent, -hurrying across the network of splashed silver and pools of black in -some kind of organized movement that was circular and seemed not due to -chance. Arranged it seemed and ordered; like the regulated revolutions -of a set and whirling measure. - -Perhaps twenty feet from where he lay was the outer fringe of what -he discerned to be this fragment of some grand gamboling dance or -frolic; yet discerned but dimly, for the darkness combined with his -uncertain vision to obscure it. - -And the shapes, as they sped across the silvery patchwork of the moon, -seemed curiously familiar. Beyond question he recognized and knew them. -For they were akin to those shadowy emanations seen weeks ago upon the -steamer's after-deck, to that "messenger" who climbed from out the sea -and sky, and to that form the spirit of the boy assumed, set free in -death. They were the flying outlines of Wind and Cloud he had so often -glimpsed in vision, racing over the long, bare, open hills--at last come -near. - -In the moment of first waking, when he saw them clearest, he declares -with emphasis that he _knew_ the father and the boy were among them. -Not so much that he saw them actually for recognition, but rather that -he felt their rushing presences; for the first sensation on opening his -eyes was the conviction that both had passed him close, had almost -touched and called him. Afterwards he searched in vain among the -flying forms that swept in the swift succession of their leaping dance -across the silvery pathways. While varying in size all were so similar. - -His description of them is confused a little, for he admits that he -could never properly focus them in steady sight. They slipped with a -melting swiftness under the eye; the moment one seemed caught in vision -it passed on further and the next was in its place. It was like -following a running wave-form on the sea. He says, moreover, that while -erect and splendid, their backs and shoulders seemed prolonged in -hugeness as though they often crouched to spring; they seemed to paw -the air; and that a faint delicious sound to which they kept obedient -time and rhythm, held that same sweetness which had issued from the -hills of Greece, blown down now among the trees from very far away. -And when he says "blown down among the trees," he qualifies this -phrase as well, because at the same time it came to him that the sound -also rose up from underneath the earth, as if the very surface of the -ground ran shaking with a soft vibration of its own. Some marvelous -dream it might have been in which the forms, the movement, and the -sound were all thrown up and outwards from the quivering surface of -the Earth itself. - -Yet, almost simultaneously with the first instant of waking, the body -issued its call of warning. For, while he gazed, and before time for the -least reflection came, the Irishman experienced this dislocating -conviction that he himself was taking part in the whirling gambol even -while he lay and watched it, and that in this way the sense of division -in his personality was explained. The fragment of himself within the -brain watched some other more vital fragment--some projection of his -consciousness detached and separate--playing yonder with its kind -beneath the moon. - -This sense of a divided self was not new to him, but never before had -he known it so distinct and overwhelming. The definiteness of the -division, as well as the importance and vitality of the separated -portion, were arrestingly novel. It felt as though he were completely -out, or to such a degree, at least, that the fraction left behind with -the brain was at first only just sufficient for him to recognize his body -at all. - -Yonder with these others he felt the wind of movement pass along -his back, he saw the trees slip by, and knew the very contact of the -ground between the leaps. His movements were natural and easy, light -as air and fast as wind; they seemed automatic, impelled by something -mighty that directed and contained them. He knew, too, the sensation -that others pressed behind him and passed before, slipped in and out, -and that through the whole wild urgency of it he yet could never make -an error. More--he knew that these shifting forms had been close and -dancing about him for a time not measurable merely by the hours of a -single night, that in a sense they were always there though he had but -just discovered them. His earlier glimpses had been a very partial -divination of a truth, immense and beautiful, that now dawned quite -gorgeously upon him all complete. - -The whole world danced. The Universe was rhythmical as well as metrical. - -For this amazing splendor showed itself in a flash-like revelation to -the freed portion of his consciousness, and he knew it irresistibly -because he himself shared it. Here was an infinite joy, naked and -unashamed, born of the mighty Mother's heart and life, a joy which, in -its feebler, lesser manifestations, trickles down into human conditions, -though still spontaneously even then, so pure its primal urgency, -as--dancing. - -The entire experience, the entire revelation, he thinks, can have -occupied but a fraction of a second, but it seemed to smite the whole -of his being at once with the conviction of a supreme authority. And -close behind it came, too, that other sister expression of a spontaneous -and natural expression, equally rhythmical--the impulse to sing. He -could have sung aloud. For this puissant and mysterious rhythm to which -all moved was greater than any little measure of their own. Surging -through them, it came from outside and beyond, infinitely greater than -themselves, springing from something of which they were, nevertheless, a -living portion. From the body of the Earth it came direct--it was in -fact a manifestation of her own vibrating life. The currents of the -Earth pulsed through them. - -"And then," he says, "I caught this flaming thought of wonder, though so -much of it faded instantly upon my full awakening that I can only give -you the merest suggestion of what it was." - -He stood up beside me as he said it, spreading his arms, as so often -when he was excited, to the sky. I caught the glow of his eyes, and in -his voice was passion. He spoke unquestionably of something he had -intimately known, not as men speak of even the vividest dreams, but of -realities that have burned the heart and left their trails of glory. - -"Science has guessed some inkling of the truth," he cried, "when it -declares that the ultimate molecules of matter are in constant vibratory -movement one about another, even upon the point of a needle. But I -saw--_knew_, rather, as if I had always known it, sweet as summer rain, -and close in me as love--that the whole Earth with all her myriad -expressions of life moved to this primal rhythm as of some divine -dancing." - -"Dancing?" I asked, puzzled. - -"Rhythmical movement call it then," he replied. "To share the life of -the Earth is to dance and sing in a huge abundant joy! And the nearer -to her great heart, the more natural and spontaneous the impulse--the -instinctive dancing of primitive races, of savages and children, still -artless and untamed; the gamboling of animals, of rabbits in the meadows -and of deer unwatched in forest clearings--you know naturalists have -sometimes seen it; of birds in the air--rooks, gulls, and swallows; of -the life within the sea; even of gnats in the haze of summer afternoons. -All life simple enough to touch and share the enormous happiness of -her deep, streaming, personal Being, dances instinctively for very -joy--obedient to a greater measure than they know.... The natural -movement of the great Earth-Soul is rhythmical. The very winds, the -swaying of trees and flowers and grasses, the movement of the sea, of -water running through the fields with silver feet, of the clouds and -edges of the mist, even the trembling of the earthquakes,--all, all -respond in sympathetic motions to this huge vibratory movement of her -great central pulse. Ay, and the mountains too, though so vastly -scaled their measure that perhaps we only know the pauses in between, -and think them motionless.... The mountains rise and fall and change; -our very breathing, first sign of stirring life, even the circulation of -our blood, bring testimony; our speech as well--inspired words are ever -rhythmical, language that pours into the poet's mind from something -greater than himself. And not unwisely, but in obedience to a deep -instinctive knowledge was dancing once--in earlier, simpler days--a -form of worship. You know, at least, how rhythm in music and ceremonial -uplifts and cleans and simplifies the heart toward the greater life.... -You know, perhaps, the Dance of Jesus...." - -The words poured from him with passion, yet always uttered gently -with a smile of joy upon the face. I saw his figure standing over me, -outlined against the starry sky; and, deeply stirred, I listened with -delight and wonder. Rhythm surely lies behind all expression of life. -He was on the heels of some simple, dazzling verity though he phrased it -wildly. But not a tenth part of all he said could I recapture afterwards -for writing down. The steady, gentle swaying of his body I remember -clearly, and that somewhere or other in the stream of language, he made -apt reference to the rhythmical swaying of those who speak in trance, or -know some strange, possessing gust of inspiration. - -The first and natural expression of the Earth's vitality lies in a -dancing movement of purest joy and happiness--that for me is the gist of -what remains. Those near enough to Nature feel it. I myself remembered -days in spring ... my thoughts, borne upon some sweet emotion, traveled -far.... - -"And not of the Earth alone," he interrupted my dreaming in a voice -like singing, "but of the entire Universe. The spheres and -constellations weave across the fields of ether the immense old rhythm of -their divine, eternal dance...!" - -Then, with a disconcerting abruptness, and a strange little wayward -laugh as of apology for having let himself so freely go, he sat down -beside me with his back against the chimney-stack. He resumed more -quietly the account of this particular adventure that lay 'twixt dream -and waking: - -All that he described had happened in a few seconds. It flashed, -complete, authoritative and vivid, then passed away. He knew again the -call and warning of his body--to return. For this consciousness of being -in two places at once, divided as it were against himself, brought with -it the necessity for decision. With which portion should he identify -himself? By an act of will, it seemed, a choice was possible. - -And with it, then, came the knowledge that to remain "out" was easier -than to return. This time, to come back into himself would be difficult. - -The very possibility seemed to provide the shock of energy necessary -for overcoming it; the experience alarmed him; it was like holding an -option upon living--like a foretaste of death. Automatically, as it were, -these loosened forces in him answered to the body's summons. The -result was immediate and singular; one of these Dancing outlines -separated itself from the main herd, approached with a sudden silent -rush, enveloped him for a second of darkness and confusion, losing its -shape completely on the way, and then merged into his being as smoke -slips in and merges with the structure of a tree. - -The projected portion of his personality had returned. The sense of -division was gone. There remained behind only the little terror of the -weak flesh whose summons had thus brought it back. - -The same instant he was fully awake--the night about him empty -of all but the silver dreaming of the moon among the shadows. Beside -him lay the sleeping figure of his companion, the bashlik of lamb's wool -drawn closely down about the ears and neck, and the voluminous black -burka shrouding him from feet to shoulders. A little distance away the -horse stood, munching grass. Again he noted that there was no wind, -and the shadows of the trees lay motionless upon the ground. The air -smelt sweet of forest, soil, and dew. - -The experience--it seemed now--belonged to dreaming rather than -to waking consciousness, for there was nothing about him to confirm -it outwardly. Only the memory remained--that, and a vast, deep-coursing, -subtle happiness. The smaller terror that he felt was of the flesh -alone, for the flesh ever instinctively fought against such separation. -The happiness, though, contained and overwhelmed the fear. - -Yes, only the memory remained, and even that fast fading. But the -substance of what had been, passed into his inmost being: the splendor -of that would remain forever, incorporated with his life. He had shared -in this brief moment of extended consciousness some measure of the -Mother's cosmic being, simple as sunshine, unrestrained as wind, complete -and satisfying. Its natural expression was rhythmical, a deep, pure -joy that drove outwards even into little human conditions as dancing -and singing. He had known it, too, with companions of his kind... - -Moreover, though no longer visible or audible, it still continued -somewhere close. He was blessedly companioned all the time--and -watched. _They_ knew him one of themselves--these brother expressions -of her cosmic life--these _Urwelt_ beings that Today had no external, -bodily forms. They waited, knowing well that he would come. Fulfillment -beckoned surely just beyond... - - - - -XXIX - -"... And then suddenly,-- - While perhaps twice my heart was dutiful - To send my blood upon its little race-- - I was exalted above surety, - And out of Time did fall." - ---LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE, _Poems and Interludes_ - - -This, then, was one of the "hints" by which O'Malley knew that he -was not alone and that the mind of his companion was stretched out -to find him. He became aware after it of a distinct guidance, even of -direction as to his route of travel. The "impulse came," as one says, to -turn northwards, and he obeyed it without more ado. For this "dream" -had come to him when camped upon the slopes of Ararat, further south -toward the Turkish frontier, and though all prepared to climb the -sixteen-thousand foot summit, he changed his plans, dismissed the local -guide, and turned back for Tiflis and the Central Range. In the wilder, -lonelier mountains, he felt strongly, was where he ought to be. - -Another man, of course, would have dismissed the dream or forgotten -it while cooking his morning coffee; but, rightly or wrongly, this -divining Celt accepted it as real. He held an instinctive belief, that in -dreams of a certain order the forces that drive behind the soul at a -given moment, may reveal themselves to the subconscious self, becoming -authoritative in proportion as they are sanely encouraged and -interpreted. They dramatize themselves in scenes that are open to -intuitive interpretation. And O'Malley, it seems, possessed, like the -Hebrew prophets of old, just that measure of judgment and divination -which go to the making of a true clear-vision. - -Packing up kit and dunnage, he crossed the Georgian Military Route -on foot to Vladikavkaz, and thence with another horse and a Mohammedan -Georgian as guide, Rostom by name, journeyed _via_ Alighir and Oni up a -side valley of unforgettable splendor toward an Imerethian hamlet where -they meant to lay-in supplies for a prolonged expedition into the -uninhabited wilderness. - -And here, the second occurrence he told me of took place. It was more -direct than the first, yet equally strange; also it brought a similar -authority--coming first along the deep mysterious underpaths of -sleep--sleep, that short cut into the subconscious. - -They were camped among low boxwood trees, a hot dry night, wind soft and -stars very brilliant, when the Irishman turned in his sleeping-bag -and abruptly woke. This time there was no dream--only the certainty that -something had wakened him deliberately. He sat up, almost with a cry. It -was exactly as though he heard himself called by name and recognized the -voice that spoke it. He looked quickly round. Nothing but the crowding -army of the box-trees was visible, some bushy and round, others -straggling in their outline, all whispering gently together in the night. -Beyond ran the immense slopes, and far overhead he saw the gleaming snow -on peaks that brushed the stars. - -No one was visible. This time no flying figures danced beneath the -moon. There was, indeed, no moon. Something, however, he knew had -come up close and touched him, calling him from the depths of a -profound and tired slumber. It had withdrawn again, vanished into the -night. The strong certainty remained, though, that it lingered near about -him still, trying to press forwards and outwards into some kind of -objective visible expression that _included himself_. He had responded -with an effort in his sleep, but the effort had been unsuccessful. He had -merely waked ... and lost it. - -The horse, tethered a few feet away, was astir and troubled, straining -at the rope, whinnying faintly, and Rostom, the Georgian peasant, he -saw, was already up to quiet it. A curious perfume passed him through -the air--once, then vanished; unforgettable, however, for he had known -it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods -about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers -and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that -had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting--a -fine, clean odor that he liked even while it strangely troubled him. - -Kicking out of his blankets, he joined the man and helped to -straighten out the tangled rope. Rostom spoke little Russian, and -O'Malley's knowledge of Georgian lay in a single phrase, "Look sharp!" -but with the aid of French the man had learned from shooting-parties, -he gathered that some one had approached during the night and -camped, it seemed, not far away above them. - -Though unusual enough in so unfrequented a region, this was not -necessarily alarming, and the first proof O'Malley had that the man -experienced no ordinary physical fear was the fact that he had left both -knife and rifle in his blankets. Hitherto, at the least sign of danger, -he changed into a perfect arsenal; he invariably slept "in his weapons"; -but now, even in the darkness, the other noted that he was unarmed, and -therefore it was no attempt at horse-stealing or of assault upon -themselves he feared. - -"Who is it? What is it?" he asked, stumbling over the tangle of -string-like roots that netted the ground. "Natives, travelers like -ourselves, or--something else?" He spoke very low, as though aware that -what had waked him still hovered close enough to overhear. "Why do you -fear?" - -And Rostom looked up a moment from stooping over the rope. He stepped a -little nearer, avoiding the animal's hoofs. In a confused whisper of -French and Russian, making at the same time the protective signs of his -religion, he muttered a sentence of which the other caught little more -than the unassuring word that something was about them close--something -"_méchant_." This curious, significant word he used. - -The whispered utterance, the manner that went with it, surely the dark -and lonely setting of the little scene as well, served to convey the -full suggestion of the adjective with a force the man himself could -scarcely have intended. Something had passed by, not so much evil, -wicked, or malign as strange and alien--uncanny. Rostom, a man utterly -careless of physical danger, rising to it, rather, with delight, was -frightened--in his soul. - -"What do you mean?" O'Malley asked louder, with an air of impatience -assumed. The man was on his knees, but whether praying, or merely -struggling with the rope, was hard to see. "What is it you're talking -about so foolishly?" He spoke with a confidence he hardly felt himself. - -And the involved reply, spoken with lips against the earth, the head -but slightly turned as he knelt, again smothered the words. Only the -curious phrase came to him--"_de l'ancien monde_--_quelque-chose_--" - -The Irishman took him by the shoulders. Not meaning actually to shake -him, he yet must have used some violence, for the fact was that he did -not like the answers and sought to deny some strong emotion in himself. -The man stood up abruptly with a kind of sudden spring. The expression of -his face was not easily divined in the darkness, but a gleam of the eyes -was clearly visible. It may have been anger, it may have been terror; -vivid excitement it certainly was. - -"Something--old as the stones, old as the stones," he whispered, -thrusting his dark bearded face unpleasantly close. "Such things are in -these mountains.... _Mais oui! C'est moi qui vous le dis!_ Old as the -stones, I tell you. And sometimes they come out close--with sudden wind. -_We_ know!" - -He stepped back again sharply and dropped upon his knees, bowing -to the ground with flattened palms. He made a repelling gesture as -though it was O'Malley's presence that brought the experience. - -"And to see them is--to die!" he heard, muttered against the ground -thickly. "To see them is to die!" - -The Irishman went back to his sleeping-bag. Some strange passion of -the man was deeply stirred; he did not wish to offend his violent beliefs -and turn it against himself in a stupid, scrambling fight. He lay and -waited. He heard the muttering of the deep voice behind him in the -darkness. Presently it ceased. Rostom came softly back to bed. - -"_He_ knows; _he_ warned me!" he whispered, jerking one hand toward the -horse significantly, as they at length lay again side by side in their -blankets and the stars shone down upon them from a deep black sky. -"But, for the moment, they have passed, not finding us. No wind has -come." - -"Another--horse?" asked O'Malley suggestively, with a sympathy -meant to quiet him. - -But the peasant shook his head; and this time it was not difficult to -divine the expression on his face even in the darkness. At the same -moment the tethered animal again uttered a long whinnying cry, plaintive, -yet of pleasure rather than alarm it seemed, which instantly brought -the man again with a leap from the blankets to his knees. O'Malley did -not go to help him; he stuffed the clothes against his ears and waited; -he did not wish to hear the peasant's sentences. - -And this pantomime went on at intervals for an hour or more, when -at length the horse grew quiet and O'Malley snatched moments of -unrefreshing sleep. The night lay thick about them with a silence like -the silence of the sky. The boxwood bushes ran together into a single -sheet of black, the far peaks faded out of sight, the air grew keen and -sharp toward the dawn on the wave of wind the sunrise drives before it -round the world. But to and fro across the Irishman's mind as he lay -between sleep and dozing ran the feeling that his friends were close, and -that those dancing forms of cosmic life to which all three approximated -had come near once more to summon him. He also knew that what the -horse had felt was something far from terror. The animal instinctively -had divined the presence of something to which it, too, was remotely -kin. - -Rostom, however, remained keenly on the alert, much of the time -apparently praying. Not once did he touch the weapons that lay ready -to hand upon the folded burka ... and when at last the dawn came, pale -and yellow, through the trees, showing the outlines of the individual box -and azalea bushes, he got up earlier than usual and began to make the -fire for coffee. In the fuller light which soon poured swiftly over the -eastern summits and dropped gold and silver into the tremendous valley at -their feet, the men made a systematic search of the immediate -surroundings, and then of the clearings and more open stretches beyond. -In silence they made it. They found, however, no traces of another -camping-party. And it was clear from the way they went about the search -that neither expected to find anything. The ground was unbroken, the -bushes undisturbed. - -Yet still, both knew. That "something" which the night had brought -and kept concealed, still hovered close about them. - -And it was at this scattered hamlet, consisting of little more than -a farm of sorts and a few shepherds' huts of stone, where they stopped -two hours later for provisions, that O'Malley looked up thus suddenly -and recognized the figure of his friend. He stood among the trees a -hundred yards away. At first the other thought he was a tree--his -stalwart form the stem, his hair and beard the branches--so big and -motionless he stood between the other trunks. O'Malley saw him for a full -minute before he understood. The man seemed so absolutely a part of the -landscape, a giant detail in keeping with the rest--a detail that had -suddenly emerged. - -The same moment a great draught of wind, rising from depths of the -valley below, swept overhead with a roaring sound, shaking the beech -and box trees and setting all the golden azalea heads in a sudden -agitation. It passed as swiftly as it came. The peace of the June morning -again descended on the mountains. - -It was broken by a wild, half-smothered cry,--a cry of genuine terror. - -For O'Malley had turned to Rostom with some word that here, in this -figure, lay the explanation of the animal's excitement in the night, -when he saw that the peasant, white as chalk beneath the tangle of black -hair that covered his face, had stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth -was open, his arms upraised to shield; he was staring fixedly in the same -direction as himself. The next instant he was on his knees, bowing and -scraping toward Mecca, groaning, hiding his eyes with both hands. The -sack he held had toppled over; the cheese and flour rolled upon the -ground; and from the horse came that long-drawn whinnying of the -night. - -There was a momentary impression--entirely in the Irishman's mind, of -course,--that the whole landscape veiled a giant, rushing movement that -passed across it like a wave. The surface of the earth, it seemed, ran -softly quivering, as though that wind had stirred response together with -the trembling of the million leaves ... before it settled back again to -stillness. It passed in the flash of an eyelid. The earth lay tranquil in -repose. - -But, though the suddenness of the stranger's arrival might conceivably -have startled the ignorant peasant, with nerves already overwrought -from the occurrence of the night, O'Malley was not prepared for the -violence of the man's terror as shown by the immediate sequel. For after -several moments' prayer and prostration, with groans half smothered -against the very ground, he sprang impetuously to his feet again, turned -to his employer with eyes that gleamed wildly in that face of chalk, -cried out--the voice thick with the confusion of his fear--"It is the -Wind! _They_ come; from the mountains _they_ come! Older than the stones -they are. Save yourself.... Hide your eyes ... fly...!"--and was gone. -Like a deer he went. He waited neither for food nor payment, but flung -the great black burka round his face--and ran. - -And to O'Malley, bereft of all power of movement as he watched in -complete bewilderment, one thing seemed clear: the man went in this -extraordinary fashion because he was afraid of something he had _felt_, -not seen. For as he ran with wild and leaping strides, he did not run -away from the figure. He took the direction straight toward the spot -where the stranger still stood motionless as a tree. So close he passed -him that he must almost have brushed his very shoulder. He did not -see him. - -The last thing the Irishman noted was that in his violence the man -had dropped the yellow bashlik from his head. O'Malley saw him stoop -with a flying rush to pick it up. He seemed to catch it as it fell. - -And then the big figure moved. He came slowly forward from among -the trees, his hands outstretched in greeting, on his great visage a -shining smile of welcome that seemed to share the sunrise. In that moment -for the Irishman all was forgotten as though unknown, unseen, save the -feelings of extraordinary happiness that filled him to the brim. - - - - -XXX - -"The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for -the title of their order, 'Those who are free throughout the world.' They -are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us much more -service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, -when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of -any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a -man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he -forgets the authors and the public, and heeds only this one dream, which -holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, and you may have all -the arguments and histories and criticism." - ---EMERSON - - -To criticize, deny, perhaps to sneer, is no very difficult or uncommon -function of the mind, and the story as I first heard him tell it, -lying there in the grass beyond the Serpentine that summer evening, -roused in me, I must confess, all of these very ordinary faculties. Yet, -as I listened to his voice that mingled with the rustle of the poplars -overhead, and watched his eager face and gestures, it came to me dimly -that a man's mistakes may be due to his attempting bigger things than -his little critic ever dreamed perhaps. And gradually I shared the vision -that this unrhyming poet by my side had somehow lived out in action. - -Inner experience for him was ever the reality--not the mere forms -or deeds that clothe it in partial physical expression. - -There was no question, of course, that he had actually met this big, -inarticulate Russian on the steamer; that Stahl's part in the account was -unvarnished; that the boy had fallen on the deck from heart disease; and -that, after an interval, chance had brought O'Malley and the father -together again in this valley of the Central Caucasus. All that was as -literal as the superstitious terror of the Georgian peasant. Further, -that the Russian possessed precisely those qualities of powerful sympathy -with the other's hidden longings which the subtle-minded Celt had been -so quick to appropriate--this, too, was literal enough. Here, doubtless, -was the springboard whence he leaped into the stream of this -quasi-spiritual adventure with an eagerness of fine, whole-hearted belief -which must make this dull world a very wonderful place indeed to those -who know it; for it is the visioned faculty of correlating the commonest -event with the procession of august Powers that pass ever to and fro -behind life's swaying curtain, and of divining in the most ordinary of -yellow buttercups the golden fires of a dropped star. - -Again, for Terence O'Malley there seemed no definite line that marked off -one state of consciousness from another, just as there seems no given -instant when a man passes actually from sleep to waking, from pleasure to -pain, from joy to grief. There is, indeed, no fixed threshold between the -states of normal and abnormal consciousness. In this stranger he imagined -a sense of companionship that by some magic of alchemy transformed his -deep loneliness into joy, and satisfied his passionate yearnings by -bringing their subjective fulfillment within range. To have found -acceptance in his sight was thus a revolutionary fact in his existence. -While a part of my mind may have labeled it all as creative imagination, -another part recognized it as plainly true--because his being lived it -out without the least denial. - -He, at any rate, was not inventing; nor ever knew an instant's doubt. -He simply told me what had happened. The discrepancies--the omissions -in his written account especially--were simply due, I feel, to the -fact that his skill in words was not equal to the depth and brilliance of -the emotions that he experienced. But the fact remains: he did experience -them. His fairy tale convinced. - -His faith had made him whole--one with the Earth. The sense of -disunion between his outer and his inner self was gone. - -And now, as these two began their journey together into the wilder -region of these stupendous mountains, O'Malley says he realized clearly -that the change he had dreaded as an "inner catastrophe" simply would -mean the complete and final transfer of his consciousness from the -"without" to the "within." It would involve the loss only of what -constituted him a person among the external activities of the world -today. He would lose his life to find it. The deeper self thus quickened -by the stranger must finally assert its authority over the rest. To join -these Urwelt beings and share their eternal life of beauty close to the -Earth herself, he must shift the center. Only thus could he enter the -state before the "Fall"--that ancient Garden of the World-Soul, walled-in -so close behind his daily life--and know deliverance from the discontent -of modern conditions that so distressed him. - -To do this temporarily, perhaps, had long been possible to him--in -dream, in reverie, in those imaginative trances when he almost seemed -to leave his body altogether; but to achieve it permanently was something -more than any such passing disablement of the normal self. It involved, -he now saw clearly, that which he had already witnessed in the boy: the -final release of his Double in so-called death. - -Thus, as they made their way northwards, nominally toward the mighty -Elbruz and the borders of Swanetia, the Irishman knew in his heart that -they in reality came nearer to the Garden long desired, and to those -lofty Gates of horn and ivory that hitherto he had never found--because -he feared to let himself go. Often he had camped beneath the walls, had -smelt the flowers, heard the songs, and even caught glimpses of the life -that moved so gorgeously within. But the Gates themselves had never shone -for him, even against the sky of dream, because his vision had been -clouded by alarm. They swung, it had seemed to him before, in only one -direction--for those who enter: he had always hesitated, lost his way, -returned.... And many, like him, make the same mistake. Once in, there -need be no return, for in reality the walls spread outwards and--enclose -the entire world. - -Civilization and Humanity, the man of smaller vision had called out -to him as passwords to safety. Simplicity and Love, he now discovered, -were the truer clues. His big friend in silence taught him. Now he knew. - -For in that little hamlet their meeting had taken place--in silence. -No actual speech had passed. "You go--so?" the Russian conveyed by -a look and by a movement of his whole figure, indicating the direction; -and to the Irishman's assenting inclination of the head he made an -answering gesture that merely signified compliance with a plan already -known to both. "We go, together then." And, there and then, they -started, side by side. - -The suddenness of this concerted departure only seemed strange afterwards -when O'Malley looked back upon it, for at the time it seemed as -inevitable as being obliged to swim once the dive is taken. He stood -upon a pinnacle whence lesser details were invisible; he knew a kind of -exaltation--of loftier vision. Small facts that ordinarily might fill the -day with trouble sank below the horizon then. He did not even notice -that they went without food, horse, or blankets. It was reckless, -unrestrained, and utterly unhindered, this free setting-forth together. -Thus might he have gone upon a journey with the wind, the sunshine, or -the rain. Departure with a thought, a dream, a fancy could not have been -less unhampered. - -The only detail of his outer world that lingered--and that, already -sinking out of sight like a stone into deep water--was the image of the -running peasant. For a moment he recalled the picture. He saw the man -in the act of stooping after the fallen bashlik. He saw him seize it, -lift it to his head again. But the picture was small--already very far -away. Before the bashlik actually reached the head, the detail dipped -into mist and vanished.... - - - - -XXXI - - -It was spring--and the flutes of Pan played everywhere. The radiance -of the world's first morning shone undimmed. Life flowed and sang and -danced, abundant and untamed. It bathed the mountains and that sky of -stainless blue. It bathed him too. Dipped, washed, and shining in it, he -walked the Earth as she lay radiant in her early youth. The crystal -presence of her everlasting Spring flew laughing through a world of light -and flowers--flowers that none could ever pluck to die, light that could -never fade to darkness within walls and roofs. - -All day they wound easily, as though on winged feet, through the steep -belt of box and beech woods, and in sparkling brilliant heat across -open spaces where the azaleas shone; a cooling wind, fresh as the dawn, -seemed ever to urge them forwards. The country, for all its huge scale -and wildness, was park-like; the giant, bushy trees wore an air of being -tended by the big winds that ran with rustling music among their waving -foliage. Between the rhododendrons were avenues of turf, broad-gladed -pathways, yet older than the moon, from which a thousand gardeners -of wind and dew had gone but a moment before to care for others -further on. Over all brimmed up some primal, old-world beauty of a -simple life--some immemorial soft glory of the dawn. - -Closer and closer, deeper and deeper, ever swifter, ever more direct, -O'Malley passed down toward the heart of his mother's being. Along -the tenderest pathways of his inner being, so wee, so soft, so simple -that for most men they lie ignored or overgrown, he slipped with joy a -little nearer--one stage perhaps--toward Reality. - -Pan "blew in power" across these Caucasian heights and valleys. - -Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! - Piercing sweet by the river! -Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! -The sun on the hill forgot to die, -And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly - Came back to dream on the river - -In front his big leader, no longer blundering clumsily as on that toy -steamer with the awkward and lesser motion known to men, pressed -forward with a kind of giant sure supremacy along paths he knew, or -rather over a trackless, pathless world which the great planet had -charted lovingly for his splendid feet. That wind, blowing from the -depths of valleys left long since behind, accompanied them wisely. They -heard, not the faint horns of Elfland faintly blowing, but the blasts of -the _Urwelt_ trumpets growing out of the still distance, nearer, ever -nearer. For leagues below the beech woods poured over the enormous slopes -in a sea of soft green foam, and through the meadow spaces they saw the -sweet nakedness of running water, and listened to its song. At noon they -rested in the greater heat, sleeping beneath the shadow of big rocks; and -sometimes traveled late into the night, when the stars guided them and -they knew the pointing of the winds. The very moonlight then, that -washed this lonely world with silver, sheeting the heights of snow -beyond, was friendly, half divine ... and it seemed to O'Malley that -while they slept they were watched and cared for--as though Others -who awaited had already come halfway out to meet them. - -And ever, more and more, the passion of his happiness increased; he -knew himself complete, fulfilled, made whole. It was as though his Self -were passing outwards into hundreds of thousands, and becoming -countless as the sand. He was everywhere; in everything; shining, -singing, dancing.... With the ancient woods he breathed; slipped with the -streams down the still darkened valleys; called from each towering -summit to the Sun; and flew with all the winds across the immense, -untrodden slopes. About him lay this whole spread being of the flowered -Caucasus, huge and quiet, drinking in the sunshine at its leisure. But it -lay also _within_ himself, for his expanding consciousness included and -contained it. Through it--this early potent Mood of Nature--he passed -toward the Soul of the Earth within, even as a child, caught by a mood of -winning tenderness in its mother, passes closer to the heart that gave it -birth. Some central love enwrapped him. He knew the surrounding power of -everlasting arms. - - - - -XXXII - -"Inward, ay, deeper far than love or scorn, - Deeper than bloom of virtue, stain of sin, - Rend thou the veil and pass alone within, - Stand naked there and know thyself forlorn. - Nay! in what world, then, spirit, vast thou born? - Or to what World-Soul art thou entered in? - Feel the Self fade, feel the great life begin. - With Love re-rising in the cosmic morn. - The Inward ardor yearns to the inmost goal; - The endless goal is one with the endless way; - From every gulf the tides of Being roll, - From every zenith burns the indwelling day, - And life in Life has drowned thee and soul in Soul; - And these are God and thou thyself art they." - ---F.W.H. MYERS. From "A Cosmic Outlook" - - -The account of what followed simply swept me into fairyland, yet a -Fairyland that is true because it lives in every imaginative heart that -does not dream itself shut off from the Universe in some wee compartment -all alone. - -If O'Malley's written account, and especially his tumbled notebooks, -left me bewildered and confused, the fragments that he told me brought -this sense of an immense, sweet picture that actually existed. I caught -small scenes of it, set in some wild high light. Their very incoherence -conveyed the gorgeous splendor of the whole better than any neat ordered -sequence could possibly have done. - -Climax, in the story-book meaning, there was none. The thing flowed -round and round forever. A sense of something eternal wrapped me as -I listened; for his imagination set the whole adventure out of time and -space, and I caught myself dreaming too. "A thousand years in His -sight"--I understood the old words as refreshingly new--might be a day. -Thus felt that monk, perhaps, for whose heart a hundred years had passed -while he listened to the singing of a little bird. - -My practical questions--it was only at the beginning that I was dull -enough to ask them--he did not satisfy, because he could not. There -was never the least suggestion of the artist's mere invention. - -"You really felt the Earth about and in you," I had asked, "much as -one feels the presence of a friend and living person?" - -"Drowned in her, yes, as in the thoughts and atmosphere of some one -awfully loved." His voice a little trembled as he said it. - -"So speech unnecessary?" - -"Impossible--fatal," was the laconic, comprehensive reply, "limiting: -destructive even." - -That, at least, I grasped: the pitifulness of words before that love by -which self goes wholly lost in the being of another, adrift yet cared -for, gathered all wonderfully in. - -"And your Russian friend--your leader?" I ventured, haltingly. - -His reply was curiously illuminating:-- - -"Like some great guiding Thought within her mind--some flaming -_motif_--interpreting her love and splendor--leading me straight." - -"As you felt at Marseilles, a clue--a vital clue?" For I remembered -the singular phrase he had used in the notebook. - -"Not a bad word," he laughed; "certainly, as far as it goes, not a wrong -one. For he--_it_--was at the same time within myself. We merged, as -our life grew and spread. We swept things along with us from the banks. -We were in flood together," he cried. "We drew the landscape with us!" - -The last words baffled me; I found no immediate response. He pushed -away the plates on the table before us, where we had been lunching in -the back room of a dingy Soho restaurant. We now had the place to -ourselves. He drew his chair a little nearer. - -"Don't ye see--our journey also was _within_," he added abruptly. - -The pale London sunlight came through the window across chimneys, -dreary roofs, courtyards. Yet where it touched his face it seemed at -once to shine. His voice was warm and eager. I caught from him, as it -were, both heat and light. - -"You moved actually, though, over country--?" - -"While at the same time we moved within, advanced, sank deeper," -he returned; "call it what you will. Our condition moved. There was this -correspondence between the two. Over her face we walked, yet into her -as well. We 'traveled' with One greater than ourselves, both caught and -merged in her, in utter sympathy with one another as with herself..." - -This stopped me dead. I could not pretend more than a vague sympathetic -understanding with such descriptions of a mystical experience. Nor, it -was clear, did he expect it of me. Even his own heart was troubled, and -he knew he spoke of things that only few may deal with sanely, still -fewer hear with patience. - -But, oh, that little room in Greek Street smelt of forests, dew, and -dawn as he told it,--that dear wayward Child of Earth! For "his voice -fell, like music that makes giddy the dim brain, faint with intoxication -of keen joy." I watched those delicate hands he spread about him -through the air; the tender, sensitive lips, the light blue eyes that -glowed. I noted the real strength in the face,--a sort of nobility it -was--his shabby suit of grey, his tie never caught properly in the -collar, the frayed cuffs, and the enormous boots he wore even in -London--"policeman boots" as we used to call them with a laugh. - -So vivid was the picture that he painted! Almost, it seemed, I knew -myself the pulse of that eternal Spring beneath our feet, beating in vain -against the suffocating weight of London's bricks and pavements laid -by civilization--the Earth's delight striving to push outwards into -visible form as flowers. She flashed some scrap of meaning thus into -me, though blunted on the way, I fear, and crudely paraphrased. - -Yes, as he talked across the airless gloom of that little back room, in -some small way I caught the splendor of his vision. Behind the words, -I caught it here and there. My own wee world extended. My being stretched -to understand him and to net in fugitive fragments the scenes of wonder -that he knew complete. - -Perhaps his larger consciousness fringed my own to "bruise" it, as he -claimed the Earth had done to him, so that I glimpsed in tinier measure -an experience that in himself blazed whole and thundering. It was, I -must admit, exalting and invigorating, if a little breathless; and the -return to streets and omnibuses painful--a descent to ugliness and -disappointment. For things I can hardly understand now, even in my -own descriptions of them, seemed at the time quite clear--or clear-ish -at any rate. Whereas normally I could never have compassed them at all. - -It taught me: that, at least, I know. In some spiritual way I quickened -to the view that all great teaching really comes in some such curious -fashion--via a temporary stretching or extension of the "heart" to -receive it. The little normal self is pushed aside to make room, even to -the point of loss, in order to contain it. Later, the consciousness -contracts again. But it has expanded--and there has been growth. Was -this, I wondered, perhaps what mystics speak of when they say the -personal life must slip aside, be trampled on, submerged, before there -can be room for the divine Presences...? - -At any rate, as he talked there over coffee that grew cold and cigarette -smoke that made the air yet thicker than it naturally was, his words -conveyed with almost grandeur of conviction this reality of a profound -inner experience. I shared in some faint way its truth and beauty, so -that when I saw it in his written form I marveled to find the thing so -thin and cold and dwindled. The key his personal presence supplied, of -guidance and interpretation, of course was gone. - - - - -XXXIII - -"Why, what is this patient entrance into Nature's deep resources - But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane? - When we drive out, from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses, - Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane?" - ---E.B. BROWNING - - -The "Russian" led. - -O'Malley styled him thus to the end for want of a larger word, perhaps--a -word to phrase the inner and the outer. Although the mountains were -devoid of trails, he seemed always certain of his way. An absolute -sense of orientation possessed him; or, rather, the whole earth became -a single pathway. Her being, in and about their hearts, concealed no -secrets; he knew the fresh, cool water-springs as surely as the corners -where the wild honey gathered. It seemed as natural that the bees should -leave them unmolested, giving them freely of their store, as that the -savage dogs in the aouls, or villages, they passed so rarely now, should -refrain from attack. Even the peasants shared with them some common, -splendid life. Occasionally they passed an Ossetian on horseback, a rifle -swung across his saddle, a covering burka draping his shoulders and the -animal's haunches in a single form that seemed a very outgrowth of the -mountains. But not even a greeting was exchanged. They passed in silence; -often very close, as though they did not see these two on foot. And once -or twice the horses reared and whinnied, while their riders made the -signs of their religion.... Sentries they seemed. But for the password -known to both they would have stopped the travelers. In these forsaken -fastnesses mere unprotected wandering means death. Yet to the happy -Irishman there never came a thought of danger or alarm. All was a portion -of himself, and no man can be afraid of his own hands or feet. Their -convoy was immense, invisible, a guaranteed security of the vast Earth -herself. No little personal injury could pass so huge defense. Others, -armed with a lesser security of knives and guns and guides, would -assuredly have been turned back, or had they shown resistance, would -never have been heard to tell the tale. Dr. Stahl and the fur-merchant, -for instance-- - -But such bothering little thoughts with their hard edges no longer -touched reality; they spun away and found no lodgment; they were--untrue; -false items of some lesser world unrealized. - -For, in proportion as he fixed his thoughts successfully on outward and -physical things, the world wherein he now walked grew dim: he missed the -path, stumbled, saw trees and flowers indistinctly, failed to hear -properly the call of birds and wind, to feel the touch of sun; and, -most unwelcome of all,--was aware that his leader left him, dwindling -in size, dropping away somehow among shadows far behind or far ahead. - -The inversion was strangely complete: what men called solid, real, and -permanent he now knew as the veriest shadows of existence, fleeting, -unsatisfactory, false. - -Their dreary make-believe had all his life oppressed him. He now knew -why. Men, driving their forces outwards for external possessions had lost -the way so utterly. It truly was amazing. He no longer quite understood -how such feverish strife was possible to intelligent beings: the -fur-merchant, the tourists, his London friends, the great majority of -men and women he had known, pain in their hearts and weariness in -their eyes, the sad strained faces, the furious rush to catch a little -pleasure they deemed joy. It seemed like some wild senseless game that -madness plays. He found it difficult to endow them, one and all, with any -sense of life. He saw them groping in thick darkness, snatching with -hands of shadow at things of even thinner shadow, all moving in a wild -and frantic circle of artificial desires, while just beyond, absurdly -close to many, blazed this great living sunshine of Reality and Peace and -Beauty. If only they would turn--and look _within_--! - -In fleeting moments these sordid glimpses of that dark and shadow-world -still afflicted his outer sight--the nightmare he had left behind. It -played like some gloomy memory through a corner of consciousness not yet -wholly disentangled from it. Already he burned to share his story with -the world...! A few he saw who here and there half turned, touched by a -flashing ray--then rushed away into the old blackness as though -frightened, not daring to escape. False images thrown outward by the -intellect prevented. Stahl he saw ... groping; a soft light of yearning -in his eyes ... a hand outstretched to push the shadows from him, yet -ever gathering them instead.... Men he saw by the million, youth still in -their hearts, yet slaving in darkened trap-like cages not merely to earn -a competency but to pile more gold for things not really wanted; faces -of greed round gambling-tables; the pandemonium of Exchanges; even fair -women, playing Bridge through all a summer afternoon--the strife and lust -and passion for possessions degrading every heart, choking the channels -of simplicity.... Over the cities of the world he heard the demon -Civilization sing its song of terror and desolation. Its music of -destruction shook the nations. He saw the millions dance. And mid the -bewildering ugly thunder of that sound few could catch the small sweet -voice played by the Earth upon the little Pipes of Pan... the fluting -call of Nature to the Simple Life--which is the Inner. - -For now, as he moved closer to the Earth, deeper ever deeper into the -enfolding moods of her vast collective consciousness, he drew nearer -to the Reality that satisfies. He approached that center where outward -activity is less, yet energy and vitality far greater--because it is at -rest. Here he met things halfway, as it were, _en route_ for the outer -physical world where they would appear later as "events," but not yet -emerged, still alive and breaking with their undischarged and natural -potencies. Modern life, he discerned, dealt only with these forces when -they had emerged, masquerading at the outer rim of life as complete -embodiments, whereas actually they are but partial and symbolical -expressions of their eternal prototypes behind. And men today were busy -at this periphery only, touch with the center lost, madly consumed with -the unimportant details that concealed the inner glory. It was the spirit -of the age to mistake the outer shell for the inner reality. He at last -understood the reason of his starved loneliness amid the stupid uproar -of latter-day life, why he distrusted "Civilization," and stood apart. -His yearnings were explained. His heart dwelt ever in the Golden Age of -the Earth's first youth, and at last--he was coming home. - -Like mud settling in dirty water, the casual realities of that outer life -all sank away. He grew clear within, one with the primitive splendor, -beauty, grace of a fresh world. Over his inner self, flooding slowly the -passages and cellars, those subterranean ways that honeycomb the dim-lit -foundations of personality, this tide of power rose. Filling chamber -after chamber, melting down walls and ceiling, eating away divisions -softly and irresistibly, it climbed in silence, merging all moods and -disunion of his separate Selves into the single thing that made him -comprehensible to himself and able to know the Earth as Mother. He -saw himself whole; he knew himself divine. A strange tumult as of some -ecstasy of old remembrance invaded him. He dropped back into a more -spacious scale of time, long long ago when a month might be a moment, -or a thousand years pass round him as a single day.... - -The qualities of all the Earth lay too, so easily contained, within -himself. He understood that old legend by which man the microcosm -represents and sums up Earth, the macrocosm in himself, so that Nature -becomes the symbol and interpreter of his inner being. The strength -and dignity of the trees he drew into himself; the power of the wind was -his; with his unwearied feet ran all the sweet and facile swiftness of -the rivulets, and in his thoughts the graciousness of flowers, the wavy -softness of the grass, the peace of open spaces and the calm of that vast -sky. The murmur of the _Urwelt_ was in his blood, and in his heart the -exaltation of her golden Mood of Spring. - -How, then, could speech be possible, since both shared this common life? -The communion with his friend and leader was too profound and perfect -for any stammering utterance in the broken, partial symbols known as -language. This was done for them: the singing of the birds, the -wind-voices, the rippling of water, the very humming of the myriad -insects even, and rustling of the grass and leaves, shaped all they felt -in some articulate expression that was right, complete, and adequate. The -passion of the larks set all the sky to music, and songs far sweeter than -the nightingales' made every dusk divine. - -He understood now that laborious utterance of his friend upon the -steamer, and why his difficulty with words was more than he could -overcome. - -Like a current in the sea he still preserved identity, yet knew the -freedom of a boundless being. And meanwhile the tide was ever rising. -With this singular companion he neared that inner realization which -should reveal them as they were--Thoughts in the Earth's old -Consciousness too primitive, too far away, too vital and terrific to be -confined in any outward physical expression of the "civilized" world -today.... The earth shone, glittered, sang, holding them close to the -rhythm of her gigantic heart. Her glory was their own. In the blazing -summer of the inner life they floated, happy, caught away, at peace ... -emanations of her living Self. - - * * * * * - -The valleys far below were filled with mist, cutting them off literally -from the world of men, but the beauty of the upper mountains grew more -and more bewilderingly enticing. The scale was so immense, while the -brilliant clearness of the air brought distance close before the eyes, -altered perspective, and robbed "remote" and "near" of any definite -meaning. Space fled away. It shifted here and there at pleasure, -according as they felt. It was within them, not without. They passed, -dispersed and swift about the entire landscape, a very part of it, -diffused in terms of light and air and color, scattered in radiance, -distributed through flowers, spread through the sky and grass and -forests. Space is a form of thought. But they no longer "thought": they -felt.... O, that prodigious, clean, and simple Feeling of the Earth! Love -that redeems and satisfies! Power that fills and blesses! Electric -strength that kills the germ of separateness, making whole! The medicine -of the world! - -For days and nights it was thus--or was it years and minutes?--while -they skirted the slopes and towers of the huge Dykh-Taou, and Elbrous, -supreme and lonely in the heavens, beckoned solemnly. The snowy -Kochtan-Taou rolled past, yet through, them; Kasbek superbly thundered; -hosts of lesser summits sang in the dawn and whispered to the -stars. And longing sank away--impossible. - -"My boy, my boy, could you only have been with me...!" broke his -voice across the splendid dream, bringing me back to the choking, dingy -room I had forgotten. It was like a cry--a cry of passionate yearning. - -"I'm with you now," I murmured, some similar rising joy half breaking in -my breast. "That's something--" - -He sighed in answer. "Something, perhaps. But I have got it always; it's -all still part of me. Oh, oh! that I could give it to the world and lift -the ache of all humanity...!" His voice trembled. I saw the moisture of -immense compassion in his eyes. I felt myself swim out into universal -being. - -"Perhaps," I stammered half beneath my breath, "perhaps some day you -may...!" - -He shook his head. His face turned very sad. - -"How should they listen, much less understand? Their energies drive -outwards, and separation is their God. There is no 'money in it'...!" - - - - -XXXIV - -"Oh! whose heart is not stirred with tumultuous joy when the intimate -Life of Nature enters into his soul with all its plenitude, ... when that -mighty sentiment for which language has no other name than Love is -diffused in him, like some powerful all-dissolving vapor; when he, -shivering with sweet terror, sinks into the dusky, enticing bosom of -Nature; when the meager personality loses itself in the overpowering -waves of passion, and nothing remains but the focal point of the -incommensurable generative Force, an engulfing vortex in the ocean?" - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Saïs._ Translated by U.C.B. - - -Early in the afternoon they left the bigger trees behind, and passed -into that more open country where the shoulders of the mountains were -strewn with rhododendrons. These formed no continuous forest, but -stood about in groups some twenty-five feet high, their rounded masses -lighted on the surface with fires of mauve and pink and purple. When -the wind stirred them, and the rattling of their stiff leaves was heard, -it seemed as if the skin of the mountains trembled to shake out colored -flames. The air turned radiant through a mist of running tints. - -Still climbing, they passed along broad glades of turfy grass between -the groups. More rapidly now, O'Malley says, went forward that inner -change of being which accompanied the progress of their outer selves. -So intimate henceforth was this subtle correspondence that the very -landscape took the semblance of their feelings. They moved as -"emanations" of the landscape. Each melted in the other, dividing lines -all vanished. - -Their union with the Earth approached this strange and sweet fulfillment. - -And so it was that, though at this height the vestiges of bird and -animal life were wholly gone, there grew more and more strongly the -sense that, in their further depths and shadows, these ancient bushes -screened Activities even more ancient than themselves. Life, only -concealed because they had not reached its plane of being, pulsed -everywhere about their pathway, immense in power, moving swiftly, very -grand and very simple, and sometimes surging close, seeking to draw them -in. More than once, as they moved through glade and clearing, the -Irishman knew thrills of an intoxicating happiness, as this abundant, -driving life brushed past him. It came so close, it glided before his -eyes, yet still was viewless. It strode behind him and before, peered -down through space upon him, lapped him about with the stir of mighty -currents. The deep suction of its invitation caught his soul, urging the -change within himself more quickly forward. Huge and delightful, he -describes it, awful, yet bringing no alarm. - -He was always on the point of seeing. Surely the next turning would -reveal; beyond the next dense, tangled group would come--disclosure; -behind that clustered mass of purple blossoms, shaking there mysteriously -in the wind, some half-veiled countenance of splendor watched -and welcomed! Before his face passed swift, deific figures, tall, erect, -compelling, charged with this ancient, golden life that could never -wholly pass away. And only just beyond the fringe of vision. Vision -already strained upon the edge. His consciousness stretched more and -more to reach them, while They came crowding near to let him know -inclusion. - -These projections of the Earth's old consciousness moved thick and -soft about them, eternal in their giant beauty. Soon he would know, -perhaps, the very forms in which she had projected them--dear portions -of her streaming life the earliest races half divined and worshipped, and -never quite withdrawn. Worship could still entice them out. A single -worshipper sufficed. For worship meant retreat into the heart where still -they dwelt. And he had loved and worshipped all his life. - -And always with him, now at his side or now a little in advance, his -leader moved in power, with vigorous, springing gestures like to dancing, -singing that old tuneless song of the wind, happier even than himself. - -The splendor of the _Urwelt_ closed about them. They drew nearer to -the Gates of that old Garden, the first Time ever knew, whose frontiers -were not less than the horizons of the entire world. For this lost Eden -of a Golden Age when "first God dawned on chaos" still shone within -the soul as in those days of innocence before the "Fall," when men first -separated themselves from their great Mother. - -A little before sunset they halted. A hundred yards above the -rhododendron forest, in a clear wide space of turf that ran for leagues -among grey boulders to the lips of the eternal snowfields, they waited. -Through a gap of sky, with others but slightly lower than himself, the -pyramid of Kasbek, grim and towering, stared down upon them, dreadfully -close though really miles away. At their feet yawned the profound -valley they had climbed. Halfway into it, unable to reach the depths, -the sun's last rays dropped shafts like rivers slanting. Already in soft -troops the shadows crept downwards from the eastern-facing summits -overhead. - -Out of these very shadows Night drew swiftly down about the world, -building with her masses of silvery architecture a barrier that rose to -heaven. These two lay down beside it. Beyond it spread that shining -Garden...only the shadow-barrier between. - -With the rising of the moon this barrier softened marvelously, letting -the starbeams in. It trembled like a line of wavering music in the wind -of night. It settled downwards, shaking a little, toward the ground, -while just above them came a curving inwards like a bay of darkness, with -overhead two stately towers, their outline fringed with stars. - -"The Gateway...!" whispered something through the mountains. - -It may have been the leader's voice; it may have been the Irishman's own -leaping thought; it may have been merely a murmur from the rhododendron -leaves below. It came sifting gently through the shadows. O'Malley knew. -He followed his leader higher. Just beneath this semblance of an -old-world portal which Time could neither fashion nor destroy, they lay -upon the earth--and waited. Beside them shone the world, dressed by the -moon in silver. The wind stood still to watch. The peak of Kasbek from -his cloudy distance listened too. - -For, floating upwards across the spaces came a sound of simple, -old-time piping--the fluting music of a little reed. It drew near, -stopped for a moment as though the player watched them; then, with a -plunging swiftness, passed off through starry distance up among the -darker mountains. The lost, forsaken Asian valley covered them. Nowhere -were they extraneous to it. They slept. And while they slept, they moved -across the frontiers of fulfillment. - -The moon-blanched Gate of horn and ivory swung open. The consciousness -of the Earth possessed them. They passed within. - - - - -XXXV - -"For of old the Sun, our sire, - Came wooing the mother of men, - Earth, that was virginal then, -Vestal fire to his fire. -Silent her bosom and coy, - But the strong god sued and press'd; -And born of their starry nuptial joy - Are all that drink of her breast. - -"And the triumph of him that begot, - And the travail of her that bore, - Behold they are evermore -As warp and weft in our lot. -We are children of splendor and flame, - Of shuddering, also, and tears. -Magnificent out of the dust we came, - And abject from the spheres. - -"O bright irresistible lord! - We are fruit of Earth's womb, each one, - And fruit of thy loins, O Sun, -Whence first was the seed outpour'd. -To thee as our Father we bow, - Forbidden thy Father to see, -Who is older and greater than thou, as thou - Art greater and older than we." - ---WILLIAM WATSON, "Ode in May" - - -Very slowly the dawn came. The sky blushed rose, trembled, flamed. A -breath of wind stirred the vapors that far below sheeted the surface -of the Black Sea. But it was still in that gentle twilight before -the actual color comes that O'Malley found he was lying with his eyes -wide open, watching the rhododendrons. He may have slept meanwhile, -though "sleep," he says, involving loss of consciousness, seemed no -right description. A sense of interval there was at any rate, a -"transition-blank,"--whatever that may mean--he phrased it in the -writing. - -And, watching the rhododendron forest a hundred yards below, he saw it -move. Through the dim light this movement passed and ran, here, there, -and everywhere. A curious soft sound accompanied it that made him -remember the Bible phrase of wind "going in the tops of the mulberry -trees." Hushed, swift, elusive murmur, it passed about him through the -dusk. He caught it next behind him and, turning, noticed groups upon the -slopes,--groups that he had not seen the night before. These groups -seemed also now to move; the isolated scattered clusters came together, -merged, ran to the parent forest below, or melted just beyond the line of -vision above. - -The wind sprang up and rattled all the million leaves. That rattling -filled the air, and with it came another, deeper sound like to a sound -of tramping that seemed to shake the earth. Confusion caught him then -completely, for it was as if the mountain-side awoke, rose up, and shook -itself into a wild and multitudinous wave of life. - -At first he thought the wind had somehow torn the rhododendrons loose -from their roots and was strewing them with that tramping sound about the -slopes. But the groups passed too swiftly over the turf for that, swept -completely from their fastenings, while the tramping grew to a roaring as -of cries and voices. That roaring had the quality of the voice that -reached him weeks ago across the Ægean Sea. A strange, keen odor, too, -that was not wholly unfamiliar, moved upon the wind. - -And then he knew that what he had been watching all along were not -rhododendrons at all, but living, splendid creatures. A host of others, -moreover, large ones and small together, stood shadowy in the background, -stamping their feet upon the turf, manes tossing in the early wind, in -their entire mass awful as in their individual outline somehow noble. - -The light spread upwards from the east. With a fire of terrible joy and -wonder in his heart, O'Malley held his breath and stared. The luster of -their glorious bodies, golden bronze in the sunlight, dazed the sight. -He saw the splendor of ten hundred velvet flanks in movement, with here -and there the uprising whiteness of a female outline that flashed and -broke above the general mass like foam upon a great wave's crest--figures -of incomparable grace and power; the sovereign, upright carriage; the -rippling muscles upon massive limbs, and shoulders that held defiant -strength and softness in exquisite combination. And then he heard huge -murmurs of their voices that filled the dawn, aged by lost thousand -years, and sonorous as the booming of the sea. A cry that was like -singing escaped him. He saw them rise and sweep away. There was -a rush of magnificence. They cantered--wonderfully. They were gone. - -The roar of their curious commotion traveled over the mountains, -dying into distance very swiftly. The rhododendron forest that had -concealed their approach resumed its normal aspect, but burning now -with colors innumerable as the sunrise caught its thousand blossoms. -And O'Malley understood that during "sleep" he had passed with his -companion through the gates of ivory and horn, and stood now within -the first Garden of the early world. All frontiers crossed, all -barriers behind, he stood within the paradise of his heart's desire. -The Consciousness of the Earth included him. These were early forms -of life she had projected--some of the living prototypes of legend, -myth, and fable--embodiments of her first manifestations of -consciousness, and eternal, accessible to every heart that holds a -true and passionate worship. All his life this love of Nature, which -was worship, had been his. It now fulfilled itself. Merged by love -into the consciousness of the Being loved, he _felt_ her -thoughts, her powers, and manifestations of life as his own. - -In a flash, of course, this all passed clearly before him; but there -was no time to dwell upon it. For the activity of his companion had -likewise become suddenly tremendous. He had risen into complete -revelation at last. His own had called him. He was off to join his -kind. - -The transformation came upon both of them, it seems, at once, but -in that moment of bewilderment, the Irishman only realized it first in -his leader. - -For on the edge of the advancing sunlight first this Cosmic Being -crouched, then rose with alert and springing movement, leaping to his -feet in a single bound that propelled him with a stride of more than a -man's two limbs. His great sides quivered as he shook himself. A roar, -similar to that sound the distance already swallowed, rolled forth -into the air. With head thrown back, chest forward, too, for all the -backward slant of the mighty shoulders, he stood there, grandly -outlined, pushing the wind before him. The great brown eyes shone -with the joy of freedom and escape--a superb and regal transformation. - -Urged by the audacity of his strange excitement, the Irishman obeyed -an impulse that came he knew not whence. The single word sprang to -his lips before he could guess its meaning, much less hold it back. - -"Lapithae...!" he cried aloud; "Lapithae...!" - -The stalwart figure turned with an awful spring as though it would -trample him to the ground. A moment the brown eyes flamed with a light of -battle. Then, with another roar, and a gesture that was somehow both huge -and simple, he seemed to rise and paw the air. The next second this -figure of the _Urwelt_, come once more into its own, bent down and -forward, leaped wonderfully--then, cantering, raced away across the -slopes to join his kind. He went like a shape of wind and cloud. The -heritage of racial memory was his, and certain words remained still -vividly evocative. That old battle with the Lapithae was but one item of -the scenes of ancient splendor lying pigeon-holed in his mighty Mother's -consciousness. The instant he had called, the Irishman himself lay caught -in lost memory's tumultuous whirl. The lonely world about him seemed of a -sudden magnificently peopled--sky, woods, and torrents. - -He watched a moment the fierce rapidity with which he sped toward the -mountains, the sound of his feet already merged in that other, vaster -tramping, and then he turned--to watch himself. For a similar -transformation was going forward in himself, and with the happiness of -wild amazement he saw it. Already, indeed, it was accomplished. All white -and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his -limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream -of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more -capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the -wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew -that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran. - -He ran, yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards -through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours brandishing -his arms he flew with a free, unfettered motion, traversing the surface -of the mother's mind and body. Free of the entire Earth he was. - -And as he raced to join the others, there passed again across his memory -faintly--it was like the little memory of some physical pain almost--the -picture of the boy who swam so strangely in the sea, the picture of the -parent's curious emanations on the deck, and, lastly, of those flying -shapes of cloud and wind his inner vision brought so often speeding over -long, bare hills. This was the final fragment of the outer world that -reached him.... - -He tore along the mountains in the dawn, the awful speed at last -explained. His going made a sound upon the wind, and like the wind -he raced. Far beyond him in the distance, he saw the shadow of that -disappearing host spreading upon the valleys like a mist. Faintly still -he caught their sound of roaring; but it was his own feet now that made -that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf. The landscape moved and opened, -gathering him in.... - -And, hardly had he gone, when there stole upon the place where he -had stood, a sweet and simple sound of music--the little piping of a -reed. It dropped down through the air, perhaps, or came from the forest -edge, or possibly the sunrise brought it--this ancient little sound of -fluting on those Pipes men call the Pipes of Pan.... - - - - -XXXVI - -"Here we but peak and dwindle - The clank of chain and crane, - The whirr of crank and spindle - Bewilder heart and brain; - The ends of our endeavor - Are wealth and fame, - Yet in the still Forever - We're one and all the same; - -"Yet beautiful and spacious - The wise, old world appears. - Yet frank and fair and gracious - Outlaugh the jocund years. - Our arguments disputing, - The universal Pan - Still wanders fluting--fluting-- - Fluting to maid and man. - Our weary well-a-waying - His music cannot still: - Come! let us go a-maying, - And pipe with him our fill." - ---W.E. HENLEY - - -In a detailed description, radiant with a wild loveliness of some -forgotten beauty, and of necessity often incoherent, the Irishman -conveyed to me, sitting in that dreary Soho restaurant, the passion of -his vision. With an astonishing vitality and a wealth of deep conviction -it all poured from his lips. There was no halting and no hesitation. Like -a man in trance he talked, and like a man in trance he lived it over -again while imparting it to me. None came to disturb us in our dingy -corner. Indeed there is no quieter place in all London town than the back -room of these eating-houses of the French Quarter between the hours of -lunch and dinner. The waiters vanish, the "patron" disappears; no -customers come in. But I know surely that its burning splendor came not -from the actual words he used, but was due to definite complete -transference of the vision itself into my own heart. I caught the fire -from his very thought. His heat inflamed my mind. Words, both in the -uttered and the written version, dimmed it all distressingly. - -And the completeness of the transference is proved for me by the fact -that I never once had need to ask a question. I saw and understood it -all as he did. And hours must have passed during the strange recital, for -toward the close people came in and took the vacant tables, the lights -were up, and grimy waiters clattered noisily about with plates and knives -and forks, thrusting an inky carte du jour beneath our very faces. - -Yet how to set it down I swear I know not. Nor he, indeed. The -notebooks that I found in that old sack of Willesden canvas were a -disgrace to any man who bid for sanity,--a disgrace to paper and pencil -too! - -All memory of his former life, it seems, at first, had fallen utterly -away; nothing survived to remind him of it; and thus he lost all standard -of comparison. The state he moved in was too complete to admit of -standards or of critical judgment. For these confine, imprison, and -belittle, whereas he was free. His escape was unconditioned. From the -thirty years of his previous living, no single fragment broke through. -The absorption was absolute. - -"I really do believe and know myself," he said to me across that -spotted table-cloth, "that for the time I was merged into the being of -another, a being immensely greater than myself. Perhaps old Stahl was -right, perhaps old crazy Fechner; and it actually was the consciousness -of the Earth. I can only tell you that the whole experience left no room -in me for other memories; all I had previously known was gone, wiped -clean away. Yet much of what came in its place is beyond me to describe; -and for a curious reason. It's not the size or splendor that prevent the -telling, but rather the sublime simplicity of it all. I know no language -today simple enough to utter it. Far behind words it lies, as difficult -of full recovery as the dreams of deep sleep, as the ecstasy of the -religious, elusive as the mystery of Kubla Khan or the Patmos visions of -St. John. Full recapture, I am convinced, is not possible at all in -words. - -"And at the time it did not seem like vision; it was so natural; -unstudied, unprepared, and ever there; spontaneous too and artless as -a drop of water or a baby's toy. The natural is ever the unchanging. My -God! I tell you, man, it was divine!" - -He made about him a vehement sweeping gesture with his arm which -emphasized more poignantly than speech the contrast he felt here where -we sat--tight, confining walls, small stifling windows, chairs to rest -the body, smothering roof and curtains, doors of narrow entrance and -exit, floors to lift above the sweet surface of the soil,--all of them -artificial barriers to shut out light and separate away from the Earth. -"See what we've come to!" it said plainly. And it included even his -clothes and boots and collar, the ridiculous hat upon the peg, the -unsightly "brolly" in the dingy corner. Had there been room in me for -laughter, I could well have laughed aloud. - - * * * * * - -For as he raced across that stretch of splendid mountainous Earth, -watching the sunrise kiss the valleys and the woods, shaking the dew -from his feet and swallowing the very wind for breath, he realized that -other forms of life similar to his own were everywhere about him--also -moving. - -"They were a part of the Earth even as I was. Here she was crammed -to the brim with them--projections of her actual self and being, -crowded with this incomparable ancient beauty that was strong as her -hills, swift as her running streams, radiant as her wild flowers. Whether -to call them forms or thoughts or feelings, or Powers perhaps, I swear, -old man, I know not. Her Consciousness through which I sped, drowned, -lost, and happy, wrapped us all in together as a mood contains its own -thoughts and feelings. For she _was_ a Being--of sorts. And I _was_ -in her mind, mood, consciousness, call it what you best can. These -other thoughts and presences I felt were the raw material of forms, -perhaps--Forces that when they reach the minds of men must clothe -themselves in form in order to be known, whether they be Dreams, or Gods, -or any other kind of inspiration. Closer than that I cannot get.... I -knew myself within her being like a child, and I felt the deep, eternal -pull--to simple things." - - * * * * * - -And thus the beauty of the early world companioned him, and all the -forgotten gods moved forward into life. They hovered everywhere, -immense and stately. The rocks and trees and peaks that half concealed -them, betrayed at the same time great hints of their mighty gestures. -Near him, they were; he moved toward their region. If definite sight -refused to focus on them the fault was not their own but his. He never -doubted that they could be seen. Yet, even thus partially, they -manifested--terrifically. He was aware of their overshadowing presences. -Sight, after all, was an incomplete form of knowing--a thing he had left -behind--elsewhere. It belonged, with the other limited sense-channels, -to some attenuated dream now all forgotten. Now he knew _all over._ He -himself was of them. - -"I am home!" it seems he cried as he ran cantering across the sunny -slopes. "At last I have found you! Home...!" and the stones shot wildly -from his thundering tread. - -A roar of windy power filled the sky, and far away that echoing -tramping paused to listen. - -"We have called you! Come...!" - -And the forms moved down slowly from their mountainous pedestals; -the woods breathed out a sigh; the running water sang; the slopes -all murmured through their grass and flowers. For a worshipper, strayed -from the outer world of the dead, stood within the precincts of their -ancient temple. He had passed the Angel with the flaming sword those -very dead had set there long ago. The Garden now enclosed him. He -had found the heart of the Earth, his mother. Self-realization in the -perfect union with Nature was fulfilled. He knew the Great At-onement. - - * * * * * - -The quiet of the dawn still lay upon the world; dew sparkled; the air was -keen and fresh. Yet, in spite of all this vast sense of energy, this -vigor and delight, O'Malley no longer felt the least goading of -excitement. There was this animation and this fine delight; but craving -for sensation of any kind, was gone. Excitement, as it tortured men in -that outer world he had left, could not exist in this larger state of -being; for excitement is the appetite for something not possessed, -magnified artificially till it has become a condition of disease. All -that he needed was now contained within himself; he was at-ease; and, -literally, that unrest which men miscall delight could touch him not nor -torture him again. - -If this were death--how exquisite! - -And Time was not a passing thing, for it lay, he says, somehow in an -ocean everywhere, heaped up in gulfs and spaces. It was as though he -could help himself and take it. That morning, had he so wished, could -last forever; he could go backwards and taste the shadows of the night -again, or forward and bask in the glory of hot noon. There were no parts -of things, and so no restlessness, no sense of incompleteness, no -divisions. - -This quiet of the dawn lay in himself, and, since he loved it, lay there, -cool and sweet and sparkling for--years; almost--forever. - - * * * * * - -Moreover, while this giant form of _Urwelt_-life his inner self had -assumed was new, it yet seemed somehow familiar. The speed and weight -and power caused him no distress, there was no detail that he could not -manage easily. To race thus o'er the world, keeping pace with an eternal -dawn, was as simple as for the Earth herself to spin through space. His -union with her was as complete as that. In every item of her being lay -the wonder of her perfect form--a sphere. It was complete. Nothing -could add to it. - -Yet, while all recollection of his former, pettier self was gone, he -began presently to remember--men. Though never in relation to himself, he -retained dimly a picture of that outer world of strife and terror. As a -memory of illness he recalled it--dreadfully, a nightmare fever from -which he had recovered, its horror already fading out. Cities and crowds, -poverty, illness, pain and all the various terror of Civilization, robbed -of the power to afflict, yet still hung hovering about the surface of his -consciousness, though powerless to break his peace. - -For the power to understand it vanished; no part of him knew sympathy -with it; so clearly he now saw himself sharing the Earth, that a vague -wonder filled him when he recalled the mad desires of men to possess -external forms of things. It was amazing and perplexing. How could they -ever have devised such wild and childish efforts--all in the -wrong direction? - -If that outer life were the real one how could any intelligent being -think it worth while to live? How could any thinking man hold up his -head and walk along the street with dignity if that was what he believed? -Was a man satisfied with it worth keeping alive at all? What bigger -scheme could ever use him? The direction of modern life today was -diametrically away from happiness and truth. - -Peace was the word he knew, peace and a singing joy. - - * * * * * - -He played with the Earth's great dawn and raced along these mountains -through her mind. _Of course>_ the hills could dance and sing and clap -their hands. He saw it clear. How could it be otherwise? They were -expressions of her giant moods--what in himself were thoughts--phases -of her ample, surging Consciousness.... - -He passed with the sunlight down the laughing valleys, spread with -the morning wind above the woods, shone on the snowy peaks, and -leaped with rushing laughter among the crystal streams. These were his -swift and darting signs of joy, words of his singing as it were. His main -and central being swung with the pulse of the Earth, too great for any -telling. - -He read the book of Nature all about him, yes, but read it singing. -He understood how this patient Mother hungered for her myriad lost -children, how in the passion of her summers she longed to bless them, -to wake their high yearnings with the sweetness of her springs, and to -whisper through her autumns how she prayed for their return...! - -Instinctively he read the giant Page before him. For "every form in -nature is a symbol of an idea and represents a sign or letter. A -succession of such symbols forms a language; and he who is a true child -of nature may understand this language and know the character of -everything. His mind, becomes a mirror wherein the attributes of natural -things are reflected and enter the field of his consciousness.... For man -himself is but a thought pervading the ocean of mind." - -Whether or not lie remembered these stammering yet pregnant words from -the outer world now left behind, the truth they shadowed forth rose up -and took him ... and so he flowed across the mountains like a thing of -wind and cloud, and so at length came up with the stragglers of that -mighty herd of _Urwelt_ life. He joined them in a river-bed of those -ancient valleys. They welcomed him and took him to themselves. - - * * * * * - -For the particular stratum, as it were, of the Earth's enormous -Collective Consciousness to which he belonged, or rather that part and -corner in which he was first at home, lay with these lesser ancient -forms. Although aware of far mightier expressions of her life, he could -not yet readily perceive or join them. And this was easily comprehensible -by the analogy of his own smaller consciousness. Did not his own mind -hold thoughts of various kinds that could not readily mingle? His -thoughts of play and frolic, for instance, could not combine with the -august and graver sentiments of awe and worship, though both could -dwell together in the same heart. And here apparently, as yet, he only -touched that frolicsome fringe of consciousness that knew these wild -and playful lesser forms. Thus, while he was aware of other more -powerful figures of wonder all about him, he never quite achieved their -full recognition. The ordered, deeper strata of her Consciousness to -which they belonged still lay beyond him. - -Yet everywhere he fringed them. They haunted the entire world. They -brooded hugely with a kind of deep magnificence that was like the slow -brooding of the Seasons; they rose, looming and splendid, through the -air and sky, proud, strong, and tragic. For, standing aloof from all the -rest, in isolation, like dreams in a poet's mind, too potent for -expression, they thus knew tragedy--the tragedy of long neglect and -loneliness. - -Seated on peak and ridge, rising beyond the summits in the clouds, -filling the valleys, spread over watercourse and forest, they passed -their life of lonely majesty--apart, their splendor too remote for him as -yet to share. Long since had Earth withdrawn them from the hearts of men. -Her lesser children knew them no more. But still through the deep -recesses of her further consciousness they thundered and were glad... -though few might hear that thunder, share that awful joy.... - -Even the Irishman--who in ordinary life had felt instinctively that -worship which is close to love, and so to the union that love -brings--even he, in this new-found freedom, only partially discerned -their presences. He felt them now, these stately Powers men once called -the gods, but felt them from a distance; and from a distance, too, they -saw and watched him come. He knew their gorgeous forms half dimmed by -a remote and veiled enchantment; knew that they reared aloft like -ancient towers, ruined by neglect and ignorance, starved and lonely, but -still hauntingly splendid and engaging, still terrifically alive. And it -seemed to him that sometimes their awful eyes flashed with the sunshine -over slope and valley, and that wherever they rested flowers sprang to -life. - -Their nearness sometimes swept him like a storm, and then the entire -herd with which he mingled would stand abruptly still, caught by a wave -of awe and wonder. The host of them stood still upon the grass, their -frolic held a moment, their voices hushed, only deep panting audible -and the soft shuffling of their hoofs among the flowers. They bowed -their splendid heads and waited--while a god went past them.... And -through himself, as witness of the passage, a soft, majestic power also -swept. With the lift of a hurricane, yet with the gentleness of dew, he -felt the noblest in himself irresistibly evoked. It was gone again as -soon as come. It passed. But it left him charged with a regal confidence -and joy. As in the mountains a shower of snow picks out the highest peaks -in white, tracing its course and pattern over the entire range, so in -himself he knew the highest powers--aspirations, yearnings, hopes--raised -into shining, white activity, and by these quickened splendors of -his soul could recognize the nature of the god who came so close. - - * * * * * - -And, keeping mostly to the river-beds, they splashed in the torrents, -played and leaped and cantered. From the openings of many a moist cave -others came to join them. Below a certain level, though, they never went; -the forests knew them not; they loved the open, windy heights. They -turned and circulated as by a common consent, wheeling suddenly together -as if a single desire actuated the entire mass. One instinct spread, as -it were, among the lot, shared instantly, conveying to each at once the -general impulse. Their movements in this were like those of birds whose -flight in coveys obeys the order of a collective consciousness of which -each single one is an item--expressions of one single Bird-Idea behind, -distributed through all. - -And O'Malley without questioning or hesitation obeyed, while yet he was -free to do as he wished alone. To do as they did was the greatest -pleasure, that was all. - -For sometimes with two of them, one fully-formed, the other of lesser -mold--he flew on little journeys of his own. These two seemed nearer -to him than the rest. He felt he knew them and had been with them -before. Their big brown eyes continually sought his own with pleasure. -It almost seemed as if they had all three been separated long away from -one another, and had at last returned. No definite memory of the -interval came back, however; the sea, the steamer, and the journey's -incidents all had faded--part of that world of lesser insignificant dream -where they had happened. But these two kept close to him; they ran and -danced together.... - -The time that passed included many dawns and nights and also many -noons of splendor. It all seemed endless, perfect, and serene. That -anything could finish here did not once occur to him. Complete things -cannot finish. He passed through seas and gulfs of glorious existence. -For the strange thing was that while he only remembered afterwards the -motion, play, and laughter, he yet had these other glimpses here and -there of some ordered and progressive life existing just beyond. It lay -hidden deeper within. He skimmed its surface; but something prevented -his knowing it fully. And the limitation that held him back belonged, -it seemed, to that thin world of trivial dreaming he had left behind. He -had not shaken it off entirely. It still obscured his sight. - -The scale and manner of this greater life faintly reached him, nothing -more. It may be that he only failed to bring back recollection, or it may -be that he did not penetrate deeply enough to know. At any rate, he -recognized that this sudden occasional passing by of vast deific figures -had to do with it, and that all this ocean of Earth's deeper -Consciousness was peopled with forms of life that obeyed some splendid -system of progressive ordered existence. To be gathered up in this one -greater consciousness was not the end.... Rather was it merely the -beginning.... - -Meantime he learned that here, among these lesser thoughts of the great -Mother, all the Pantheons of the world had first their origin--the -Greek, the Eastern, and the Northern too. Here all the gods that men -have ever half divined, still ranged the moods of Her timeless -consciousness. Their train of beauty, too, accompanied them. - - * * * * * - -I cannot half recall the streams of passionate description with which -his words clothed these glowing memories of his vision. Great pictures -of it haunt the background of my mind, pictures that lie in early mists, -framed by the stars and glimmering through some golden, flowered -dawn. Besides the huge outlines that stood breathing in the background -like dark mountains, there flitted here and there strange dreamy forms -of almost impossible beauty, slender as lilies, eyes soft and starry -shining through the dusk, hair flying past them like a rain of summer -flowers. Nymph-like they moved down all the pathways of the Earth's young -mind, singing and radiant, spring blossoms in the Garden of her -Consciousness.... And other forms, more vehement and rude, urged -to and fro across the pictures; crowding the movement; some playful -and protean; some clothed as with trees, or air, or water; and others -dark, remote, and silent, ranging her deeper layers of thought and dream, -known rarely to the outer world at all. - -The rush and glory of it all is more than my mind can deal with. I -gather, though, O'Malley saw no definite forms, but rather knew -"forces," powers, aspects of this Soul of Earth, facets she showed in -long-forgotten days to men. Certainly the very infusoria of his -imagination were kindled and aflame when he spoke of them. Through the -tangled thicket of his ordinary mind there shone this passion of an -uncommon loveliness and splendour. - - - - -XXXVII - -"The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we -really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things, so much -the more is snatched from inevitable time." - ---RICHARD JEFFERIES - - -In the relationship that his everyday mind bore to his present state -there lay, moreover, a wealth of pregnant suggestion. The bridge -connecting his former "civilized" condition with this cosmic experience -was a curious one. That outer, lesser state, it seemed, had known a -foretaste sometimes of the greater. And it was hence had come those -dreams of a Golden Age that used to haunt him. For he began now to -recall the existence of that outer world of men and women, though by -means of certain indefinite channels only. And the things he remembered -were not what the world calls important. They were moments when he had -known--beauty; beauty, however, not of the grandiose sort that holds the -crowd, but of so simple and unadvertised a kind that most men overlook it -altogether. - -He understood now why the thrill had been so wonderful. He saw -clearly why those moments of ecstasy he had often felt in Nature used -to torture him with an inexpressible yearning that was rather pain than -joy. For they were precisely what he now experienced when the viewless -figure of a god passed by him. Down there, out there, below--in that -cabined lesser state--they had been partial, but were now complete. -Those moments of worship he had known in woods, among mountains, -by the shores of desolate seas, even in a London street, perhaps at the -sight of a tree in spring or of a pathway of blue sky between the summer -clouds,--these had been, one and all, tentative, partial revelations of -the Consciousness of the Soul of Earth he now knew face to face. - -These were his only memories of that outer world. Of people, cities, -or of civilization apart from these, he had no single remembrance. - - * * * * * - -Certain of these little partial foretastes now came back to him, like -fragments of dream that trouble the waking day. - -He remembered, for instance, one definite picture: a hot autumn sun -upon a field of stubble where the folded corn-sheaves stood; thistles -waving by the hedges; a yellow field of mustard rising up the slope -against the sky-line, and beyond a row of peering elms that rustled in -the wind. The beauty of the little scene was somehow poignant. He -recalled it vividly. It had flamed about him, transfiguring the world; he -had trembled, yearning to see more, for just behind it he divined with -an exulting passionate worship this gorgeous, splendid Earth-Being with -whom at last he now actually moved. In that instant of a simple -loveliness her consciousness had fringed his own--had bruised it. He -had known it only by the partial channels of sight and smell and -hearing, but had felt the greater thing beyond, without being able to -explain it. And a portion of what he felt had burst in speech from his -lips. - -He was there, he remembered, with two persons, a man and woman -whose name and face, however, he could not summon, and he recalled -that the woman smiled incredulously when he spoke of the exquisite -perfume of those folded corn-sheaves in the air. She told him he -imagined it. He saw again the pretty woman's smile of incomprehension; he -saw the puzzled expression in the eyes of the man; he heard -him murmur something prosaic about the soul, about birds, too, and -the prospects of killing hundreds later--sport! He even saw the woman -picking her way with caution as though the touch of earth could stain -or injure her. He especially recalled the silence that had followed on -his words that sought to show them--Beauty.... He remembered, too, -above all, the sense of loneliness among men that it induced in himself. - -But the memory brought him a curious, sharp pain; and turning to -that couple who were now his playmates in this Garden of the Earth, -he called them with a singing cry and cantered over leagues of flowers, -wind, and sunshine before he stopped again. They leaped and danced -together, exulting in their spacious _Urwelt_ freedom ... want of -comprehension no longer possible. - - * * * * * - -The memory fled away. He shook himself free of it. Then others came in -its place, another and another, not all with people, blind, deaf, and -unreceptive, yet all of "common," simple scenes of beauty when something -vast had surged upon him and broken through the barriers that stand -between the heart and Nature. Such curious little scenes they were. In -most of them he had evidently been alone. But one and all had touched his -soul with a foretaste of this same nameless ecstasy that now he knew -complete. In every one the Consciousness of the Earth had "bruised" his -own. - -Utterly simple they had been, one and all, these partial moments of -blinding beauty in that lesser, outer world:--A big, brown, clumsy bee -he saw, blundering into the petals of a wild flower on which the dew -lay sparkling.... A wisp of colored cloud driving loosely across the -hills, dropping a purple shadow.... Deep, waving grass, plunging and -shaking in the wind that drew out its underworld of blue and silver over -the whole spread surface of a field.... A daisy closed for the night upon -the lawn, eyes tightly shut, hands folded.... A south wind whispering -through larches.... The pattering of summer rain upon young oak -leaves in the dawn.... Fingers of long blue distance upon dreamy -woods.... Anemones shaking their pale and starry little faces in the -wind.... The columned stillness of a pine-wood in the dusk.... Young -birch trees mid the velvet gloom of firs.... The new moon setting in a -cloud of stars.... The hush of stars in many a summer night.... Sheep -grazing idly down a sun-baked hill.... A path of moonlight on a -lake.... A little wind through bare and wintry woods.... Oh! he -recalled the wonder, loveliness, and passion of a thousand more! - -They thronged and passed, and thronged again, crowding one another:--all -golden moments of revelation when he had caught glimpses of the Earth, -and her greater Moods had swept him up into herself. Moments in which a -god had passed.... - -These were his only memories of that outer world he had left behind: -flashes of simple beauty. - -Was thus the thrill of beauty then explained? Was loveliness, as men -know it, a revelation of the Earth-Soul behind? And were the blinding -flash, the dazzling wonder, and the dream men seek to render permanent -in music, color, line and language, a vision of her nakedness? Down -there, the poets and those simple enough of heart to stand close to -Nature, could catch these whispered fragments of the enormous message, -told as in secret; but now, against her very heart he heard the -thunder of the thing complete. Now, in the glory of all naked bodily -forms,--of women, men and children, of swift animals, of flowers, trees, -and running water, of mountains and of seas,--he understood these -partial revelations of the great Earth-Soul that bore them, gave them -life. For one and all were channels for her loveliness. He saw the -beauty of the "natural" instincts, the passion of motherhood and -fatherhood--Earth's seeking to project herself in endless forms and -variety. He understood why love increased the heart and made it feel at -one with all the world. - - * * * * * - -Moreover in some amazing fashion he was aware that others from -that outer world beside himself had access here, and that from this -Garden of the Earth's deep central personality came all the inspiration -known to men. He divined that others were even now drawing upon it -like himself. The thoughts of the poets went past him like thin flames; -the dreams of millions--mute, inexpressible yearnings like those he -had himself once known--streamed by in pale white light, to shoot -forward with a little nesting rush into some great Figure ... and then -return in double volume to the dreaming heart whence first they issued. -Shadows, too, he saw, by myriads--faint, feeble gropings of men and -women seeking it eagerly, yet hardly knowing what they sought; but, -above all, long, singing, beautiful tongues of colored flame that were -the instincts of divining children and of the pure in heart. These came -in rippling floods unerringly to their goal, lingered for long periods -before returning. And all, he knew, were currents of the great Earth -Life, moods, thoughts, dreams--expressions of her various Consciousness -with which she mothered, fed, and blessed all whom it was possible to -reach. Their passionate yearning, their worship, made access possible. -Along the tenderest portions of her personality these latter came, as by -a spread network of infinitely delicate filaments that extended from -herself, deliciously inviting.... - - * * * * * - -The thing, however, that remained with him long after his return -to the normal state of lesser consciousness was the memory of those -blinding moments when a god went past him, or, as he phrased it in -another way, when he caught glimpses of the Earth--naked. For these -were instantaneous flashes of a gleaming whiteness, a dazzling and -supreme loveliness that staggered thought and arrested feeling, while yet -of a radiant simplicity that brought--for a second at least--a measure -of comprehension. - -He then knew not mere partial projections. He saw beyond--deep -down into the flaming center that gave them birth. The blending of his -being with the Cosmic Consciousness was complete enough for this. -He describes it as a spectacle of sheer glory, stupendous, even -terrifying. The refulgent majesty of it utterly possessed him. The shock -of its magnificence came, moreover, upon his entire being, and was not -really of course a "sight" at all. The message came not through any small -division of a single sense. With a massed yet soaring power it shook him -free of all known categories. He then fringed a region of yet greater -being wherein he tasted for a moment some secret comprehension of a true -"divinity." The deliverance into ecstasy was complete. - -In these flashing moments, when a second seemed a thousand years, -he further _understood_ the splendor of the stage beyond. Earth in her -turn was but a Mood in the Consciousness of the Universe, that Universe -again was mothered by another vaster one ... and the total that included -them all was not the gods--but God. - - - - -XXXVIII - - -The litter of disordered notebooks filled to the covers with fragments -of such beauty that they almost seem to burn with a light of their -own, lies at this moment before me on my desk. I still hear the rushing -torrent of his language across the spotted table-cloth in that dark -restaurant corner. But the incoherence seems only to increase with my -best efforts to combine the two. - -"Go home and dream it," as he said at last when I ventured a question -here and there toward the end of the recital. "You'll see it best that -way--in sleep. Get clear away from _me_, and my surface physical -consciousness. Perhaps it will come to you then." - -There remains, however, to record the manner of his exit from that -great Garden of the Earth's fair youth. And he tells it more simply. Or, -perhaps, it is that I understand it better. - -For suddenly, in the midst of all the joy and splendor that he tasted, -there came unbidden a strengthening of the tie that held him to his -"outer," lesser state. A wave of pity and compassion surged in upon him -from the depths. He saw the struggling millions in the prisons and cages -civilization builds. He felt _with_ them. No happiness, he understood, -could be complete that did not also include them all; and--he longed -to tell them. The thought and the desire tore across him burningly. - -"If only I can get this back to them!" passed through him, like a -flame. "I'll save the world by bringing it again to simple things! I've -only got to tell it and all will understand at once--and follow!" - -And with the birth of the desire there ran a deep convulsive sound -like music through the greater Consciousness that held him close. Those -Moods that were the gods, thronged gloriously about him, almost -pressing forwards into actual sight.... He might have lingered where -he was for centuries, or forever; but this thought pulled him back--the -desire to share his knowledge with the world, the passion to heal and -save and rescue. - -And instantly, in the twinkling of an eyelid, the Urwelt closed its gates -of horn and ivory behind him. An immense dark shutter dropped -noiselessly with a speed of lightning across his mind. He stood -without.... - -He found himself near the tumbled-down stone huts of a hamlet that he -recognized. He staggered, rubbed his eyes, and stared. A forest of beech -trees shook below him in a violent wind. He saw the branches tossing. A -Caucasian saddle-horse beside him nosed a sack that spilt its flour on -the ground at his feet, he heard the animal's noisy breathing; he noted -the sliding movement of the spilt flour before it finally settled; and -some fifty yards beyond him, down the slopes, he saw a human -figure--running. - -It was his Georgian guide. The man, half stooping, caught the woolen -bashlik that had fallen from his head. - -O'Malley watched the man complete the gesture. Still running, he -replaced the cap upon his head. - -And coming up to his ears upon the wind were the words of a broken French -sentence that he also recognized. Disjointed by terror, it completed an -interrupted phrase:-- - -"... one of them is close upon us. Hide your eyes! Save yourself!. -They come from the mountains. They are old as the stones ... run...!" - -No other living being was in sight. - - - - -XXXIX - -The extraordinary abruptness of the transition produced no bewilderment, -it seems. Realizing that without Rostom he would be in a position of -helplessness that might be serious, the Irishman put his hands to his -lips and called out with authority to the running figure of his -frightened guide. He shouted to him to stop. - -"There is nothing to fear. Come back! Are you afraid of a gust of wind?" - -And in his face and voice, perhaps too in his manner, was something -he had brought back from the vision, for the man stopped at once in -his headlong course, paused a moment to stare and question, and then, -though still looking over his shoulder and making occasional signs of -his religion, came slowly back to his employer's side again. - -"It has passed," said O'Malley in a voice that seemed to crumble in -his mouth. "It is gone again into the mountains whence it came. We are -safe. With me," he added, not without a secret sense of humor stirring -in him, "you will always be safe. I can protect us both." He felt as -normal as a British officer giving orders to his soldiers. And the -Georgian slowly recovered his composure, yet for a long time keeping -close to the other's side. - -The transition, thus, had been as sudden and complete as anything well -could be. O'Malley described it as the instantaneous dropping of a -shutter across his mind. The entire vision had lasted but a fraction of -a second, and in a fraction of a second, too, he had returned to his -state of everyday lesser consciousness. That blending with the Earth's -great Consciousness was but a flashing glimpse after all. The extension -of personality had been momentary. - -So absolute, moreover, was the return that at first, remembering -nothing, he took up life again exactly where he had left it. The guide -completed the gesture and the sentence which the vision had interrupted, -and O'Malley, similarly, resumed his own thread of thought and action. - -Only a hint remained. That, and a curious sense of interval, alone -were left to witness this flash of an immense vision,--of cosmic -consciousness--that apparently had filled so many days and nights. - -"It was like waking suddenly in the night out of deep sleep," he said; -"not of one's own accord, or gradually, but as when someone shakes -you out of slumber and you are wide awake at once. You have been -dreaming vigorously--thick, lively, crowded dreams, and they all vanish -on the instant. You catch the tail-end of the procession just as it's -diving out of sight. In less than a second all is gone." - -For this was the hint that remained. He caught the flying tail-end of -the vision. He knew he _had_ seen something. But, for the moment, that -was all. - -Then, by degrees and afterwards, the details re-emerged. In the days -that followed, while with Rostom he completed the journey already -planned, the deeper consciousness gave back its memory piece by piece; -and piece by piece he set it down in notebooks as best he could. The -memory was on deposit deep within him, and at intervals he tapped it. -Hence, of course, is due the confused and fragmentary character of those -bewildering entries; hence, at the same time, too, their truth and value. -For here was no imaginative dream concocted in a mood of high invention. -The parts were disjointed, incomplete, just as they came. The lesser -consciousness, it seems, could not contain the thing complete; nor to the -last, I judge, did he ever know complete recapture. - - * * * * * - -They wandered for two weeks and more about the mountains, meeting -various adventure by the way, reported duly in his letters of travel. -But these concerned the outer man and have no proper place in this -strange record ... and by the middle of July he found himself once more -in--civilization. At Michaelevo he said good-bye to Rostom and -took the train. - -And it was with the return to the conditions of modern life that the -reaction set in and stirred the deeper layers of consciousness to -reproduce their store of magic. For this return to what seemed the paltry -activities of an age of machinery, physical luxury, and superficial -contrivances brought him a sense of pain that was acute and trenchant, -more--a deep and poignant sense of loss. The yearnings, no longer -satisfied, began again to reassert themselves. It was not the actual -things the world seemed so busy about that pained him, but rather the -point of view from which the world approached them--those that it deemed -with one consent "important," and those, with rare exceptions, it -obviously deemed worth no consideration at all, and ignored. For himself -these values stood exactly reversed. - -The Vision then came back to him, rose from the depths, blinded his eyes -with maddening beauty, sang in his ears, possessed his heart and mind. He -burned to tell it. The world of tired, restless men, he felt, must -equally burn to hear it. Some vision of a simple life lived close to -Nature came before his inner eye as the remedy for the vast disease of -restless self-seeking of the age, the medicine that should cure the -entire world. A return to Nature was the first step toward the great -Deliverance men sought. And, most of all, he yearned to tell it first to -Heinrich Stahl. - -To hear him talk about it, as he talked perhaps to me alone, was -genuinely pathetic, for here, in Terence O'Malley, I thought to see the -essential futility of all dreamers nakedly revealed. His vision was so -fine, sincere, and noble; his difficulty in imparting it so painful; and -its marriage with practical action so ludicrously impracticable. At any -rate that combination of vision and action, called sometimes genius, -which can shake the world, assuredly was not his. For his was no -constructive mind; he was not "intellectual"; he _saw_, but with the -heart; he could not build. To plan a new Utopia was as impossible to him -as to shape even in words the splendor he had known and lived. Bricks and -straw could only smother him before he laid what most would deem -foundations. - -At first, too, in those days while waiting for the steamer in Batoum, -he kept strangely silent. Even in his own thoughts was silence. He could -not speak of what he knew. Even paper refused it. But all the time this -glorious winged thing, that yet was simple as the sunlight or the rain, -went by his side, while his soul knew the relief of some divine, proud -utterance that, he felt, could never know complete confession in speech -or writing. Later he stammered over it--to his notebooks and to me, -and partially also to Dr. Stahl. But at first it dwelt alone and hidden, -contained in this deep silence. - -The days of waiting he filled with walks about the streets, watching -the world with new eyes. He took the Russian steamer to Poti, and -tramped with a knapsack up the Tchourokh gorge beyond Bourtchka, -regardless of the Turkish gypsies and encampments of wild peoples on -the banks. The sense of personal danger was impossible; he felt the whole -world kin. That sense protected him. Pistol and cartridges lay in his -bag, forgotten at the hotel. - -Delight and pain lay oddly mingled in him. The pain he recognized of -old, but this great radiant happiness was new. The nightmare of modern -cheap-jack life was all explained; unjustified, of course, as he had -always dimly felt, symptom of deep disorder; all due, this feverish, -external business, to an odd misunderstanding with the Earth. Humanity -had somehow quarreled with her, claiming an independence that could not -really last. For her the centuries of this estrangement were but a little -thing perhaps--a moment or two in that huge life which counted a million -years to lay a narrow bed of chalk. They would come back in time. -Meanwhile she ever called. A few, perhaps, already dreamed of return. -Movements, he had heard, were afoot--a tentative endeavor here and there. -They heard, these few, the splendid whisper that, sweetly calling, ever -passed about the world. - -For her voice in the last resort was more potent than all others--an -enchantment that never wholly faded; men had but temporarily left her -mighty sides and gone astray, eating of trees of knowledge that brought -them deceptive illusions of a mad self-intoxication; fallen away into the -pains of separateness and death. Loss of direction and central control -was the result; the Babel of many tongues so clumsily invented, by which -all turned one against another. Insubordinate, artificial centers had -assumed disastrous command. Each struggled for himself against his -neighbors. Even religions fought to the blood. A single sect could damn -the rest of humanity, yet in the same breath sing complaisantly of its -own Heaven. - -Meanwhile She smiled in love and patience, letting them learn their -lesson; meanwhile She watched and waited while, like foolish children, -they toiled and sweated after futile transient things that brought no -single letter of content. She let them coin their millions from her -fairest thoughts, the gold and silver in her veins; and let them turn it -into engines of destruction, knowing that each "life lost," returned into -her arms and heart, crying with the pain of its wayward foolishness, the -lesson learned; She watched their tears and struggling just outside the -open nursery door, knowing they must at length return for food; and -while thus waiting, watching, She heard all prayers that reached her; She -answered them with love and forgiveness ever ready; and to the few who -realized their folly--naughtiness, perhaps, at worst it was--this side of -"death," She brought full measure of peace and joy and beauty. - -Not permanently could they hurt themselves, for evil was but distance -from her side, the ignorance of those who had wandered furthest into -the little dark labyrinth of a separated self. The "intellect" they were -so proud of had misled them. - -And sometimes, here and there across the ages, with a glory that refused -utterly to be denied, She thundered forth her old sweet message of -deliverance. Through poet, priest, or child she called her children -home. The summons rang like magic across the wastes of this dreary -separated existence. Some heard and listened, some turned back, some -wondered and were strangely thrilled; some, thinking it too simple to -be true, were puzzled by the yearning and the tears and went back to -seek for a more difficult way; while most, denying the secret glory in -their hearts, sought to persuade themselves they loved the strife and -hurrying fever best. - -At other times, again, she chose quite different ways, and sent the -amazing message in a flower, a breath of evening air, a shell upon the -shore; though oftenest, perhaps, it hid in a strain of music, a patch of -color on the sea or hills, a rustle of branches in a little twilight -wind, a whisper in the dusk or in the dawn. He remembered his own first -visions of it.... - -Only never could the summons come to her children through the intellect, -for this it was that led them first away. Her message enters ever by the -heart. - -The simple life! He smiled as he thought of the bald Utopias here and -there devised by men, for he had seen a truth whose brilliance smote -his eyes too dazzlingly to permit of the smallest corner of darkness. -Remote, no doubt, in time that day when the lion shall lie down with -the lamb and men shall live together in peace and gentleness; when the -inner life shall be admitted as the Reality, strife, gain, and loss -unknown because possessions undesired, and petty selfhood merged in the -larger life--remote, of course, yet surely not impossible. He had seen -the Face of Nature, heard her Call, tasted her joy and peace; and the -rest of the tired world might do the same. It only waited to be shown the -way. The truth he now saw so dazzling was that all who heard the call -might know it for themselves at once, cuirassed with shining love that -makes the whole world kin, the Earth a mother literally divine. Each soul -might thus provide a channel along which the summons home should pass -across the world. To live with Nature and share her greater -consciousness, _en route_ for states yet greater, nearer to the eternal -home--this was the beginning of the truth, the life, the way. - -He saw "religion" all explained: and those hard sayings that make men -turn away:--the imagined dread of losing life to find it; the counsel -of perfection that the neighbor shall be loved as self; the fancied -injury and outrage that made it hard for rich men to enter the kingdom. -Of these, as of a hundred other sayings, he saw the necessary truth. It -all seemed easy now. The world would see it with him; it must; it could -not help itself. Simplicity as of a little child, and selflessness as of -the mystic--these were the splendid clues. - -Death and the grave, indeed, had lost their victory. For in the stages -of wider consciousness beyond this transient physical phase he saw all -loved ones joined and safe, as separate words upgathered each to each -in the parent sentence that explains them, the sentence in the paragraph, -the paragraph in the whole grand story all achieved--and so at length -into the eternal library of God that consummates the whole. - -He saw the glorious series, timeless and serene, advancing to the climax, -and somehow understood that individuality at each stage was never lost -but rather extended and magnified. Love of the Earth, life close to -Nature, and denial of so-called civilization was the first step upwards. -In the Simple Life, in this return to Nature, lay the opening of the -little path that climbed to the stars and heaven. - - - - -XL - - -At the end of the week the little steamer dropped her anchor in the -harbor and the Irishman booked his passage home. He was standing on the -wharf to watch the unloading when a hand tapped him on the shoulder and -he heard a well-known voice. His heart leaped with pleasure. There were -no preliminaries between these two. - -"I am glad to see you safe. You did not find your friend, then?" - -O'Malley looked at the bronzed face beside him, noted the ragged -tobacco-stained beard, and saw the look of genuine welcome in the -twinkling brown eyes. He watched him lift his cap and mop that familiar -dome of bald head. - -"I'm safe," was all he answered, "because I found him." - -For a moment Dr. Stahl looked puzzled. He dropped the hand he held so -tightly and led him down the wharf. - -"We'll get out of this devilish sun," he said, leading the way among -the tangle of merchandise and bales, "it's enough to boil our brains." -They passed through the crowd of swarthy, dripping Turks, Georgians, -Persians, and Armenians who labored half naked in the heat, and moved -toward the town. A Russian gunboat lay in the Bay, side by side with -freight and passenger vessels. An oil-tank steamer took on cargo. The -scene was drenched in sunshine. The Black Sea gleamed like molten -metal. Beyond, the wooded spurs of the Caucasus climbed through haze -into cloudless blue. - -"It's beautiful," remarked the German, pointing to the distant coastline, -"but hardly with the beauty of those Grecian Isles we passed together. -Eh?" He watched him closely. "You're coming back on our steamer?" he -asked in the same breath. - -"It's beautiful," O'Malley answered ignoring the question, "because -it lives. But there is dust upon its outer loveliness, dust that has -gathered through long ages of neglect, dust that I would sweep away--I've -learnt how to do it. He taught me." - -Stahl did not even look at him, though the words were wild enough. He -walked at his side in silence. Perhaps he partly understood. For this -first link with the outer world of appearances was difficult for him to -pick up. The person of Stahl, thick-coated with the civilization whence -he came, had brought it, and out of the ocean of glorious vision in his -soul, O'Malley took at random the first phrases he could find. - -"Yes, I've booked a passage on your steamer," he added presently, -remembering the question. It did not seem strange to him that his -companion ignored both clues he offered. He knew the man too well -for that. It was only that he waited for more before he spoke. - -They went to the little table outside the hotel pavement where several -weeks ago they had drunk Kakhetian wine together and talked of deeper -things. The German called for a bottle, mineral water, ice, and -cigarettes. And while they sipped the cooling golden liquid, hats off and -coats on the backs of their chairs, Stahl gave him the news of the world -of men and events that had transpired meanwhile. O'Malley listened -vaguely as he smoked. It seemed remote, unreal, almost fantastic, this -long string of ugly, frantic happenings, all symptoms of some disordered -state that was like illness. The scream of politics, the roar and rattle -of flying-machines, financial crashes, furious labor upheavals, rumors of -war, the death of kings and magnates, awful accidents and strange turmoil -in enormous cities. Details of some sad prison life, it almost seemed, -pain and distress and strife the note that bound them all together. Men -were mastered by these things instead of mastering them. These -unimportant things they thought would make them free only imprisoned -them. - -They lunched there at the little table in the shade, and in turn the -Irishman gave an outline of his travels. Stahl had asked for it and -listened attentively. The pictures interested him. - -"You've done your letters for the papers," he questioned him, "and now, -perhaps, you'll write a book as well?" - -"Something may force its way out--come blundering, thundering out in -fragments, yes." - -"You mean you'd rather not--?" - -"I mean it's all too big and overwhelming. He showed me such blinding -splendors. I might tell it, but as to writing--!" He shrugged his -shoulders. - -And this time Dr. Stahl ignored no longer. He took him up. But not with -any expected words or questions. He merely said, "My friend, there's -something that I have to tell you--or, rather, I should say, to show -you." He looked most keenly at him, and in the old familiar way he placed -a hand upon his shoulder. His voice grew soft. "It may upset you; it may -unsettle--prove a shock perhaps. But if you are prepared, we'll go--" - -"What kind of shock?" O'Malley asked, startled a moment by the gravity of -manner. - -"The shock of death," was the answer, gently spoken. - -The Irishman only knew a swift rush of joy and wonder as he heard it. - -"But there is no such thing!" he cried, almost with laughter. "He -taught me that above all else. There is no death!" - -"There is 'going away,' though," came the rejoinder, spoken low; -"there is earth to earth and dust to dust--" - -"That's of the body--!" - -"That's of the body, yes," the older man repeated darkly. - -"There is only 'going home,' escape and freedom. I tell you there's -only that. It's nothing but joy and splendor when you really understand." - -But Dr. Stahl made no immediate answer, nor any comment. He paid -the bill and led him down the street. They took the shady side. Passing -beyond the skirts of the town they walked in silence. The barracks where -the soldiers sang, the railway line to Tiflis and Baku, the dome and -minarets of the church, were left behind in turn, and presently they -reached the hot, straight dusty road that fringed the sea. They heard the -crashing of the little waves and saw the foam creamily white against the -dark grey pebbles of the beach. - -And when they reached a small enclosure where thin trees were -planted among sparse grass all brown and withered by the sun, they -paused, and Stahl pointed to a mound, marked at either end by rough -stone boulder. A date was on it, but no name. O'Malley calculated the -difference between the Russian Calendar and the one he was accustomed -to. Stahl checked him. - -"The fifteenth of June," the German said. - -"The fifteenth of June, yes," said O'Malley very slowly, but with -wonder and excitement in his heart. "That was the day that Rostom -tried to run away--the day I saw him come to me from the trees--the -day we started off together ... to the Garden...." - -He turned to his companion questioningly. For a moment the rush -of memory was quite bewildering. - -"He never left Batoum at all, you see," Stahl continued, without -looking up. "He went straight to the hospital the day we came into port. -I was summoned to him in the night--that last night while you slept -so deeply. His old strange fever was upon him then, and I took him -ashore before the other passengers were astir. I brought him to the -hospital myself. And he never left his bed." He pointed down to the -little nameless grave at their feet where a wandering wind from the sea -just stirred the grasses. "That was the date on which he died." - -"He went away in the early morning," he added in a low voice that -held both sadness and sympathy. - -"He went home," said the Irishman, a tide of joy rising tumultuously -through his heart as he remembered. The secret of that complete and -absolute Leadership was out. He understood it all. It had been a -spiritual adventure to the last. - -Then followed a pause. - -In silence they stood there for some minutes. There grew no flowers on -that grave, but O'Malley stooped down and picked a strand of the withered -grass. He put it carefully between the pages of his notebook; and then, -lying flat against the ground where the sunshine fell in a patch of white -and burning glory, he pressed his lips to the crumbling soil. He kissed -the Earth. Oblivious of Stahl's presence, or at least ignoring it, he -worshipped. - -And while he did so he heard that little sound he loved so well--which -more than any words or music brought peace and joy, because it told his -Passion all complete. With his ears close to the earth he heard it, yet -at the same time heard it everywhere. For it came with the falling of the -waves upon the shore, through the murmur of the rustling branches -overhead, and even across the whispering of the withered grass about him. -Deep down in the center of the mothering Earth he heard it too in faintly -rising pulse. It was the exquisite little piping on a reed--the ancient -fluting of the everlasting Pan.... - -And when he rose he found that Stahl had turned away and was gazing at -the sea, as though he had not noticed. - -"Doctor," he cried, yet so softly it was a whisper rather than a call, "I -heard it then again; it's everywhere! Oh, tell me that you hear it too!" - -Stahl turned and looked at him in silence. There was a moisture in his -eyes, and on his face a look of softness that a woman might have worn. - -"I've brought it back, you see, I've brought it back. For that's the -message--that's the sound and music I must give to all the world. No -words, no book can tell it." His hat was off, his eyes were shining, his -voice broke with the passion of joy he yearned to share yet knew so -little how to impart. "If I can pipe upon the flutes of Pan the millions -all will listen, will understand, and--follow. Tell me, oh, tell me, that -_you_ heard it too!" - -"My friend, my dear young friend," the German murmured in a voice of real -tenderness, "you heard it truly--but you heard it in your heart. Few hear -the Pipes of Pan as you do. Few care to listen. Today the world is full -of other sounds that drown it. And even of those who hear," he shrugged -his shoulders as he led him away toward the sea,--"how few will care to -follow--how fewer still will _dare._" - -And while they lay upon the beach and watched the line of foam against -their feet and saw the seagulls curving idly in the blue and shining air, -he added underneath his breath--O'Malley hardly caught the murmur of his -words so low he murmured them:-- - -"The simple life is lost forever. It lies asleep in the Golden Age, and -only those who sleep and dream can ever find it. If you would keep your -joy, dream on, my friend! Dream on, but dream alone!" - - - - -XLI - - -Summer blazed everywhere and the sea lay like a blue pool of melted sky -and sunshine. The summits of the Caucasus soon faded to the east and -north, and to the south the wooded hills of the Black Sea coast -accompanied the ship in a line of wavy blue that joined the water and -the sky indistinguishably. - -The first-class passengers were few; O'Malley hardly noticed their -existence even. An American engineer, building a railway in Turkey, -came on board at Trebizond; there were one or two light women on their -way home from Baku, and the attaché of a foreign embassy from Teheran. -But the Irishman felt more in touch with the hundred peasant-folk -who joined the ship at Ineboli from the interior of Asia Minor -and were bound as third-class emigrants for Marseilles and far America. -Dark-skinned, wild-eyed, ragged, very dirty, they had never seen the sea -before, and the sight of a porpoise held them spellbound. They lived -on the after-deck, mostly cooking their own food, the women and children -sleeping beneath a large tarpaulin that the sailors stretched for -them across the width of deck. At night they played their pipes and -danced, singing, shouting, and waving their arms--always the same -tune over and over again. - -O'Malley watched them for hours together. He also watched the engineer, -the over-dressed women, the attaché. He understood the difference -between them as he had never understood it before. He understood the -difficulty of his task as well. How in the world could he ever explain a -single syllable of his message to these latter, or waken in them the -faintest echo of desire to know and listen. The peasants, though all -unconscious of the blinding glory at their elbows, stood far nearer to -the truth. - -"Been further east, I suppose?" the engineer observed, one afternoon -as the steamer lay off Broussa, taking on a little extra cargo of walnut -logs. He looked admiringly at the Irishman's bronzed skin. "Take a -better sun than this to put that on!" - -He laughed in his breezy, vigorous way, and the other laughed with -him. Previous conversations had already paved the way to a traveler's -friendship, and the American had taken to him. - -"Up in the mountains," he replied, "camping out and sleeping in the -sun did it." - -"The Caucasus! Ah, I'd like to get up there myself a bit. I'm told -they're a wonderful thing in the mountain line." - -Scenery for him was evidently a commercial commodity, or it was nothing. -It was the most up-to-date nation in the world that spoke--in the van of -civilization--representing the last word in progress due to triumph over -Nature. - -O'Malley said he had never seen anything like them. He described the -trees, the flowers, the tribes, the scenery in general; he dwelt upon -the vast uncultivated spaces, the amazing fruitfulness of the soil, the -gorgeous beauty above all. "I'd like to get the overcrowded cities of -England and Europe spread all over it," he said with enthusiasm. "There -is room for thousands there to lead a simple life close to Nature, in -health and peace and happiness. Even your tired millionaires could -escape their restless, feverish worries, lay down their weary burden of -possessions, and enjoy the earth at last. The poor would cease to be with -us; life become true and beautiful again--" He let it pour out of him, -building the scaffolding of his dream before him in the air and filling -it in with beauty. - -The American listened in patience, watching the walnut logs being -towed through the water to the side of the ship. From time to time he -spat on them, or into the sea. He let the beauty go completely past him. - -"Great idea, that!" he interrupted at length. "You're interested, I see, -in socialism and communistic schemes. There's money in them somewhere -right enough, if a man only could hit the right note at the first -go off. Take a bit of doing, though!" - -One of the women from Baku came up and leaned upon the rails a little -beyond them. The sickly odor of artificial scent wafted down. The -attaché strolled along the deck and ogled her. - -"Get a few of that sort to draw the millionaires in, eh?" he added -vulgarly. - -"Even those would come, yes," said the Irishman softly, realizing for -the first time within his memory that his gorge did not rise, "for they -too would change, grow clean and sweet and beautiful." - -The engineer looked sharply into his face, uncertain whether he had -not missed a clever witticism of his own kind. But O'Malley did not -meet his glance. His eyes were far away upon the snowy summit of -Olympus where a flock of fleecy clouds hung hovering like the hair of -the eternal gods. - -"They say there's timber going to waste that you could get to the coast -merely for the cost of drawing it--Caucasian walnut, too, to burn," the -other continued, getting on to safer ground, "and labor's dirt cheap. -There's every sort of mineral too God ever made. You could build light -railways and run the show by electricity. And water-power for the asking. -You'd have to get a Concession from Russia first though," he added, -spitting down upon a huge floating log in the clear sea underneath, -"and Russia's got palms that want a lot of greasing. I guess the natives, -too, would take a bit of managing." - -The woman beyond had shifted several feet nearer, and after a pause -the Irishman found no words to fill, his companion turned to address -a remark to her. O'Malley took the opening and moved away. - -"Here's my card, anyway," the American added, handing him an -over-printed bit of large pasteboard from a fat pocket-book that bore -his name and address in silver on the outside. "If you develop the scheme -and want a bit of money, count me in." - -He went to the other side of the vessel and watched the peasants on -the lower deck. Their dirt seemed nothing by comparison. It was only -on their clothes and bodies. The odor of this unwashed humanity was -almost sweet and wholesome. It cleansed the sickly taint of that other -scent from his palate; it washed his mind of thoughts as well. - -He stood there long in dreaming silence, while the sunlight on Olympus -turned from gold to rose, and the sea took on the colors of the fading -sky. He watched a dark Kurd baby sliding down the tarpaulin. A kitten was -playing with a loose end of rope too heavy for it to move. Further off a -huge fellow with bared chest and the hands of a colossus sat on a pile of -canvas playing softly on his wooden pipes. The dark hair fell across his -eyes, and a group of women listened idly while they busied themselves -with the cooking of the evening meal. Immediately beneath him a -splendid-eyed young woman crammed a baby to her naked breast. The kitten -left the rope and played with the tassel of her scarlet shawl. - -And as he heard those pipes and watched the grave, untamed, strong faces -of those wild peasant men and women, he understood that, low though they -might be in scale of evolution, there was yet absent from them the touch -of that deteriorating _something_ which civilization painted into those -other countenances. But whether the word he sought was degradation or -whether it was shame, he could not tell. In all they did, the way they -moved, their dignity and independence, there was this something, he felt, -that bordered on being impressive. Their wants were few, their worldly -possessions in a bundle, yet they had this thing that set them in a place -apart, if not above, these others:--beyond that simpering attaché for all -his worldly diplomacy, that engineer with brains and skill, those painted -women with their clever playing upon the feelings and desires of their -kind. There _was_ this difference that set the ragged dirty crew in a -proud and quiet atmosphere that made them seem almost distinguished by -comparison, and certainly more desirable. Rough and untutored though they -doubtless were, they still possessed unspoiled that deeper and more -elemental nature that bound them closer to the Earth. It needed training, -guidance, purifying; yes; but, in the last resort, was it not of greater -spiritual significance and value than the mode of comparatively -recently-developed reason by which Civilization had produced these other -types? - -He watched them long. The sun sank out of sight, the sea turned -dark, ten thousand stars shone softly in the sky, and while the steamer -swung about and made for peaked Andros and the coast of Greece, he -still stood on in reverie and wonder. The wings of his great Dream -stirred mightily ... and he saw pale millions of men and women trooping -through the gates of horn and ivory into that Garden where they should -find peace and happiness in clean simplicity close to the Earth.... - - - - -XLII - - -There followed four days then of sea, Greece left behind, Messina and the -Lipari Islands past; and the blue outline of Sardinia and Corsica began -to keep pace with them as they neared the narrow straits of Bonifacio -between them. The passengers came up to watch the rocky desolate shores -slip by so close, and Captain Burgenfelder was on the bridge. - -Grey-headed rocks rose everywhere close about the ship; overhead the -seagulls cried and circled; no vegetation was visible on either shore, no -houses, no abode of man--nothing but the lighthouses, then miles of -deserted rock dressed in those splendors of the sun's good-night. The -dinner-gong had sounded but the sight was too magnificent to leave, -for the setting sun floated on an emblazoned sea and stared straight -against them in level glory down the narrow passage. Unimaginable -colors painted sky and wave. The ruddy cliffs of bleak loneliness rose -from a bed of flame. Soft airs fanned the cheeks with welcome coolness -after the fierce heat of the day. There was a scent of wild honey in the -air borne from the purple uplands far, far away. - -"I wonder, oh, I wonder, if they realized that a god is passing -close...!" the Irishman murmured with a rising of the heart, "and that -here is a great mood of the Earth-Consciousness inviting them to peace! -Or do they merely see a yellow sun that dips beneath a violet sea...?" - -The washing of the water past the steamer's sides caught away the rest -of the half-whispered words. He remembered that host of many thousand -heads that bowed in silence while a god swept by.... It was almost -a shock to hear a voice replying close beside him:-- - -"Come to my cabin when you're ready. My windows open to the west. -We can be alone together. We can have there what food we need. You -would prefer it perhaps?" - -He felt the touch of that sympathetic hand upon his shoulder, and -bent his head to signify agreement. - -For a moment, face to face with that superb sunset, he had known a deep -and utter peace in the vast bosom of this greater soul about him. Her -consciousness again had bruised and fringed his own. Across that -delicately divided threshold the beauty and the power of the gods had -poured in a flood into his being. And only there was peace, only there -was joy, only there was the death of those ancient yearnings that -tortured his little personal and separate existence. The return to the -world was aching pain again. The old loneliness that seemed more than he -could bear swept icily through him, contracting life and freezing every -spring of joy. For in that single instant of return he felt pass into him -a loneliness of the whole travailing world, the loneliness of countless -centuries, the loneliness of all the races of the Earth who were exiled -and had lost the way. - -Too deep it lay for words or tears or sighs. The doctor's invitation -came most opportunely. And presently in silence he turned his back -upon that opal sky of dream from which the sun had gone, and walked -slowly down the deck toward Stahl's cabin. - -"If only I can share it with them," he thought as he went; "if only -men will listen, if only they will come. To keep it all to myself, to -dream alone, will kill me." - -And as he stood before the door it seemed he heard wild rushing -through the sky, the tramping of a thousand hoofs, a roaring of the -wind, the joy of that free, torrential passage with the Earth. He turned -the handle and entered the cozy room where weeks before they held the -inquest on the little empty tenement of flesh, remembering how that -other figure had once stood where he now stood--part of the sunrise, -part of the sea, part of the morning winds. - - * * * * * - -They had their meal almost in silence, while the glow of sunset filled -the cabin through the western row of port-holes, and when it was over -Stahl made the coffee as of old and lit the familiar black cigar. -Slowly O'Malley's pain and restlessness gave way before the other's -soothing quiet. He had never known him before so calm and gentle, so -sympathetic, almost tender. The usual sarcasm seemed veiled in sadness; -there was no irony in the voice, nor mockery in the eyes. - -Then to the Irishman it came suddenly that all these days while he -had been lost in dreaming the doctor had kept him as of old under close -observation. The completeness of his reverie had concealed from him this -steady scrutiny. He had been oblivious to the fact that Stahl had all the -time been watching, investigating, keenly examining. Abruptly he now -realized it. - -And then Stahl spoke. His tone was winning, his manner frank and -inviting. But it was the sadness about him that won O'Malley's confidence -so wholly. - -"I can guess," he said, "something of the dream you've brought with -you from those mountains. I can understand--more, perhaps, than you -imagine, and I can sympathize--more than you think possible. Tell me -about it fully--if you can. I see your heart is very full, and in the -telling you will find relief. I am not hostile, as you sometimes feel. -Tell me, my dear, young clear-eyed friend. Tell me your vision and your -hope. Perhaps I might even help ... for there may be things that I could -also tell to you in return." - -Something in the choice of words, none of which offended; in the -atmosphere and setting, no detail of which jarred; and in the degree of -balance between utterance and silence his world of inner forces just then -knew, combined to make the invitation irresistible. Moreover, he had -wanted to tell it all these days. Stahl was already half convinced. Stahl -would surely understand and help him. It was the psychological moment -for confession. The two men rose in the same moment, Stahl to -lock the cabin doors against interruption, O'Malley to set their chairs -more closely side by side so that talking should be easiest. - -And then without demur or hesitation he opened his heart to this -other and let the floodgates of his soul swing wide. He told the vision -and he told the dream; he told his hope as well. And the story of his -passion, filled in with pages from those notebooks he ever carried in -his pocket, still lasted when the western glow had faded from the sky -and the thick-sown stars shone down upon the gliding steamer. The -hush of night lay soft upon the world before he finished. - -He told the thing complete, much, I imagine, as he told it all to me upon -the roof of that apartment building and in the dingy Soho restaurant. He -told it without reservations--his life-long yearnings: the explanation -brought by the presence of the silent stranger upon the outward voyage: -the journey to the Garden: the vision that all life--from gods to -flowers, from men to mountains--lay contained in the conscious Being of -the Earth, that Beauty was but glimpses of her essential nakedness; and -that salvation of the world's disease of modern life was to be found in a -general return to the simplicity of Nature close against her mothering -heart. He told it all--in words that his passionate joy chose -faultlessly. - -And Heinrich Stahl in silence listened. He asked no single question. -He made no movement in his chair. His black cigar went out before -the half of it was smoked. The darkness hid his face impenetrably. - -And no one came to interrupt. The murmur of the speeding steamer, -and occasional footsteps on the deck as passengers passed to and fro in -the cool of the night, were the only sounds that broke the music of that -incurable idealist's impassioned story. - - - - -XLIII - - -And then at length there came a change of voice across the cabin. The -Irishman had finished. He sank back in the deep leather chair, exhausted -physically, but with the exultation of his mighty hope still pouring at -full strength through his heart. For he had ventured further than ever -before and had spoken of a possible crusade--a crusade that should preach -peace and happiness to every living creature. - -And Dr. Stahl, in a voice that showed how deeply he was moved, asked -quietly:-- - -"By leading the nations back to Nature you think they shall advance -to Truth at last?" - -"With time," was the reply. "The first step lies there:--in changing -the direction of the world's activities, changing it from the transient -Outer to the eternal Inner. In the simple life, external possessions -unnecessary and recognized as vain, the soul would turn within and -seek Reality. Only a tiny section of humanity has time to do it now. -There is no leisure. Civilization means acquirement for the body: it -ought to mean development for the soul. Once sweep aside the trash -and rubbish men seek outside themselves today, and the wings of their -smothered souls would stir again. Consciousness would expand. Nature -would draw them first. They would come to feel the Earth as I did. Self -would disappear, and with it this false sense of separateness. The -greater consciousness would waken in them. The peace and joy and -blessedness of inner growth would fill their lives. But, first, this -childish battling to the death for external things must cease, and -Civilization stand revealed for the bleak and empty desolate thing it -really is. It leads away from God and from the things that are eternal." - -The German made no answer; O'Malley ceased to speak; a long silence -fell between them. Then, presently, Stahl relighted his cigar, and -lapsing into his native tongue--always a sign with him of deepest -seriousness--he began to talk. - -"You've honored me," he said, "with a great confidence; and I am deeply, -deeply grateful. You have told your inmost dream--the thing men find it -hardest of all to speak about." He felt in the darkness for his -companion's hand and held it tightly for a moment. He made no other -comment upon what he had heard. "And in return--in some small way of -return," he continued, "I may ask you to listen to something of my own, -something of possible interest. No one has ever known it from my lips. -Only, in our earlier conversations on the outward voyage, I hinted at it -once or twice. I sometimes warned you--" - -"I remember. You said he'd 'get' me, 'win' me over--'appropriation' was -the word you used." - -"I suggested caution, yes; urged you not to let yourself go too -completely; told you he represented danger to yourself, and to humanity -as it is organized today--" - -"And all the rest," put in O'Malley a shade impatiently. "I remember -perfectly." - -"Because I knew what I was talking about." The doctor's voice came across -the darkness somewhat ominously. And then he added in a louder tone, -evidently sitting forward as he said it: "For the thing that has happened -to yourself as I foresaw it would, had already _almost_ happened to me -too!" - -"To you, doctor, too?" exclaimed the Irishman in the moment's pause -that followed. - -"I saved myself just in time--by getting rid of the cause." - -"You discharged him from the hospital, because you were afraid!" He said -it sharply as though are instant of the old resentment had flashed up. - -By way of answer Stahl rose from his chair and abruptly turned up the -electric lamp upon the desk that faced them across the cabin. Evidently -he preferred the light. O'Malley saw that his face was white and very -grave. He grasped for the first time that the man was speaking -professionally. The truth came driving next behind it--that Stahl -regarded him as a patient. - - * * * * * - -"Please go on, doctor," he said, keenly on the watch. "I'm deeply -interested." The wings of his great dream still bore him too far aloft -for him to feel more than the merest passing annoyance at his discovery. -Resentment had gone too. Sadness and disappointment for an instant -touched him perhaps, but momentarily. In the end he felt sure that -Stahl would stand at his side, completely won over and convinced. - -"You had a similar experience to my own, you say," he urged him. "I -am all eagerness and sympathy to hear." - -"We'll talk in the open air," the doctor answered, and ringing the bell -for the steward to clear away, he drew his companion out to the deserted -decks. They moved toward the bows, past the sleeping peasants. The stars -were mirrored in a glassy sea and toward the north the hills of Corsica -stood faintly outlined in the sky. It was already long after midnight. - -"Yes, a similar thing nearly happened to me," he resumed as they settled -themselves against a coil of rope where only the murmur of the washing -sea could reach them, "and might have happened to others too. Inmates of -that big _Krankenhaus_ were variously affected. My action, tardy I must -admit, saved myself and them." - -And the German then told his story as a man might tell of his escape from -some grave disaster. In the emphatic sentences of his native language he -told it, congratulating himself all through. The Russian had almost won -him over, gained possession of his heart and mind, persuaded him, but in -the end had failed--because the other ran away. It was like hearing a man -describe an attempt to draw him into Heaven, then boast of his escape. -His caution and his judgment, as he put it, saved him, but to the -listening Celt it rather seemed that his compromise it was that damned -him. The Kingdom of Heaven is hard to enter, for Stahl had possessions -not of the wood and metal order, but possessions of the brain and reason -he was too proud to forego completely. They kept him out. - -With increasing sadness, too, he heard it; for here he realized was the -mental attitude of an educated, highly civilized man today--a -representative type regarded by the world as highest. It was this he had -to face. Moreover Stahl was more than merely educated, he was -understandingly sympathetic, meeting the great dream halfway; seeing in -it possibilities; admitting its high beauty, and even sometimes speaking -of it with hope and a touch of enthusiasm. Its originator none the less -he regarded as a reactionary dreamer, an unsettling and disordered -influence, a patient, if not even something worse! - -Stahl's voice and manner were singular while he told it all, revealing -one moment the critical mind that analyzed and judged, and the next -an enthusiasm almost of the mystic. Alternately, like the man and -woman of those quaint old weather-glasses, each peered out and showed -a face, the reins of compromise yet ever seeking to hold them well in -leash and drive them together. - -Hardly, it seems, had the strange Russian been under his care a week -before he passed beneath the sway of his curious personality and -experienced the attack of singular emotions upon his heart and mind. - -He described at first the man's arrival, telling it with the calm and -balanced phrases a doctor uses when speaking merely of a patient who -had stirred his interest. He first detailed the method of suggestion he -had used to revive the lapsed memory--and its utter failure. Then he -passed on to speak of him more generally: but briefly and condensed. - -"The man," he said, "was so engaging, so docile, his personality -altogether so attractive and mysterious, that I took the case myself -instead of delegating it to my assistants. All efforts to trace his past -collapsed. It was as if he had drifted into that little hotel out of the -night of time. Of madness there was no evidence whatever. The association -of ideas in his mind, though limited, was logical and rigid. His health -was perfect, barring strange, sudden fever; his vitality tremendous; -yet he ate most sparingly and the only food he touched was fruit and -milk and vegetables. Meat made him sick, the huge frame shuddered -when he saw it. And from all the human beings in the place with whom -he came in contact he shrank with a kind of puzzled dismay. With animals, -most oddly it seemed, he sought companionship; he would run to the window -if a dog barked, or to hear a horse's hoofs; a Persian cat belonging to -one of the nurses never left his side, and I have seen the trees in the -yard outside his window thick with birds, and even found them in the room -and on the sill, flitting about his very person, unafraid and singing. - -"With me, as with the attendants, his speech was almost nil--laconic -words in various languages, clipped phrases that sometimes combined -Russian, French, or German, other tongues as well. - -"But, strangest of all, with animal life he seemed to hold this kind -of communication that was Intelligible both to himself and them. Animals -certainly were 'aware' of him. It was not speech. It ran in a deep, -continuous murmur like a droning, humming sound of wind. I took the hint -thus faintly offered. I gave him his freedom in the yards and gardens. -The open air and intercourse with natural life was what he craved. The -sadness and the air of puzzled fretting then left his face, his eyes grew -bright, his whole presentment happier; he ran and laughed and even sang. -The fever that had troubled him all vanished. Often myself I took the -place of nurse or orderly to watch him, for the man's presence more than -interested me: it gave me a renewed sense of life that was exhilarating, -invigorating, delightful. And in his appearance, meanwhile, something -that was not size or physical measurement, turned--tremendous. - -"A part of me that was not mind--a sort of forgotten instinct blindly -groping--came of its own accord to regard him as some loose fragment -of a natural, cosmic life that had somehow blundered down into a -human organism it sought to use.... - -"And then it was for the first time I recognized the spell he had cast -upon me; for, when the Committee decided there was no reason to keep -him longer, I urged that he should stay. Making a special plea, I took -him as a private patient of my own. I kept him under closer personal -observation than ever before. I needed him. Something deep within me, -something undivined hitherto, called out into life by his presence, could -not do without him. This new craving, breakingly wild and sweet, awoke -in my blood and cried for him. His presence nourished it in me. Most -insidiously it attacked me. It stirred deep down among the roots of my -being. It 'threatened my personality' seems the best way I can put it; -for, turning a critical analysis upon it, I discovered that it was an -undermining and revolutionary change going steadily forward in my -character. Its growth had hitherto been secret. When I first recognized -its presence, the thing was already strong. For a long time, it had been -building. - -"And the change in a word--you will grasp my meaning from the shortest -description of essentials--was this: that ambition left me, ordinary -desire crumbled, the outer world men value so began to fade." - -"And in their place?" cried O'Malley breathlessly, interrupting for -the first time. - -"Came a rushing, passionate desire to escape from cities and live for -beauty and simplicity 'in the wilderness'; to taste the life _he_ -seemed to know; to go out blindly with him into woods and desolate -places, and be mixed and blended with the loveliness of Earth and Nature. -This was the first thing I knew. It was like an expansion of my normal -world--almost an extension of consciousness. It somehow threatened my -sense of personal identity. And--it made me hesitate." - -O'Malley caught the tremor in his voice. Even in the telling of it the -passion plucked at him, for here, as ever, he stood on the border-line of -compromise, his heart tempting him toward salvation, his brain and -reason tugging at the brakes. - -"The sham and emptiness or modern life, its drab vulgarity, the -unworthiness of its very ideals stood appallingly revealed before some -inner eye just opening. I felt shaken to the core of what had seemed -hitherto my very solid and estimable self. How the man thus so powerfully -affected me lies beyond all intelligible explanation. To use the obvious -catchword 'hypnotism' is to use a toy and stop a leak with paper. For his -influence was _unconsciously_ exerted. He cast no net of clever, -persuasive words about my thought. Out of that deep, strange silence of -the man it somehow came. His actions and his simple happiness of face and -manner--both in some sense the raw material of speech perhaps--may have -operated as potently suggestive agents; but no adequate causes to justify -the result, apart from the fantastic theories I have mentioned, have ever -yet come within the range of my understanding. I can only give you the -undeniable effects." - -"Your sense of extended consciousness," asked his listener, "was this -continuous, once it had begun?" - -"It came in patches," Stahl continued. "My normal, everyday self was -thus able to check it. While it derided, commiserated this everyday self, -the latter stood in dread of it and even awe. My training, you see, -regarded it as symptom of disorder, a beginning of unbalance that might -end in insanity, the thin wedge of a dissociation of the personality -Morton Prince and others have described." - -His speech grew more and more jerky, even incoherent; evidently the -material had not even now been fully reduced to order in his mind. - -"Among other curious symptoms I soon established that this subtle -spreading of my consciousness grew upon me especially during sleep. -The business of the day distracted, scattered it. On waking in the -morning, as with the physical fatigue that comes toward the closing of -the day, it was strongest. - -"And so, in order to examine it closely when in fullest manifestation, -I came to spend the nights with him. I would creep in while he slept -and stay till morning, alternately sleeping and waking myself. I watched -the two of us together. I also watched the 'two' in me. And thus it was -I made the further strange discovery that the influence _he_ exerted on -me was strongest while he slept. It is best described by saying that in -his sleep I was conscious that he sought to draw me with him--away -somewhere into his own wonderful world--the state or region, that is, -where he manifested completely instead of partially as I knew him here. -His personality was a channel somewhere out into a living, conscious -Nature...." - -"Only," interrupted O'Malley, "you felt that to yield and go involved -some nameless inner catastrophe, and so resisted?" He chose his phrase -with purpose. - -"Because I discovered," was the pregnant answer, given steadily while -he watched his listener closely through the darkness, "that this desire -for escape the man had wakened in me was nothing more or less than the -desire to leave the world, to leave the conditions that prevented--in -fact to leave the body. My discontent with modern life had gone as far -as that. It was the birth of the suicidal mania." - - * * * * * - -The pause that followed the words, on the part of Dr. Stahl at any -rate, was intentional. O'Malley held his peace. The men shifted their -places oil the coil of rope, for both were cramped and stiff with the -lengthy session. For a minute or two they leaned over the bulwarks and -watched the phosphorescent foam in silence. The blue mountainous shores -slipped past in shadowy line against the stars. But when they sat down -again their relative positions were not what they had been before. Dr. -Stahl had placed himself between his listener and the sea. And O'Malley -did not let the manoeuvre escape him. Smiling to himself he noticed it. -Just as surely he noticed, too, that the whole recital was being told him -with a purpose. - -"You really need not be afraid," he could not resist saying. "The idea -of escape _that_ way has never even come to me at all. And, anyhow, I've -far too much on hand first in telling the world my message." He laughed -in the silence that took his words, for Stahl said nothing and made as -though he had not heard. But the Irishman understood that it was in -the spirit of feeble compromise that danger lay--if danger there was at -all, and he himself was far beyond such weakness. His eye was single -and his body full of light, and the faith that plays with mountains had -made him whole. Return to Nature for him involved no denial of human -life, nor depreciation of human interests, but only a revolutionary -shifting of values. - -"And it was one night while he slept and I watched him in the little -room," resumed the German as though there had been no interruption, -"I noticed first so decisively this growing of a singular size about him -I have already mentioned, and grasped its meaning. For the bulk of the -man while growing--emerging, rather, I should say--assumed another -shape than his own. It was not my eyes that saw it. I saw him as _he felt -himself to be_. The creature's personality, his essential inner being, -was acting directly upon my own. His influence was at me from another -point or angle. First the emotions, then the senses you see. It was a -finely organized attack. - -"I definitely understood at last that my mind was affected--and proved it -too, for the instant effort I made at recovery resulted in my seeing him -normal again. The size and shape retreated the moment I denied them." - -O'Malley noticed how the speaker's voice lingered over the phrase. -Again he knew the intention of the pause that followed. He held his -peace, however, and waited. - -"Nor was sight the only sense affected," Stahl continued, "for smell -and hearing also brought their testimony. Through all but touch, -indeed, the hallucination attacked me. For sometimes at night while I -sat up watching in the little room, there rose outside the open window -in the yards and gardens a sound of tramping, a distant roaring as of -voices in a rising wind, a rushing, hollow murmur, confused and deep -like that of forests, or the swift passage of a host of big birds across -the sky. I heard it, both in the air and on the ground--this tramping on -the lawns, this curious shaking of the atmosphere. And with it at the -same time a sharp and mingled perfume that made me think of earth -and leaves, of flowers after rain, of plains and open spaces, most -singular of all--of animals and horses. - -"Before the firm denial of my mind, they vanished, just as the change -of form had vanished. But both left me weaker than they found me, -more tender to attack. Moreover, I understood most plainly, that they -emanated all from him. These 'emanations' came, too, chiefly, as I -mentioned, whilst he slept. In sleep, it seemed, he set them free. The -slumber of the body disengaged them. And then the instinct came to -warn me--presenting itself with the authority of an unanswerable -intuition--the realization, namely, that if, for a single moment in his -presence, I slept, the changes would leap forward in my own being, and -I should join him." - -"Escape! Know freedom in a larger consciousness!" cried the other. - -"And for a man of my point of view and training to have permitted -such a conviction at all," he went on, the interruption utterly ignored -again, "proves how far along the road I had already traveled without -knowing it. Only at the time I was not aware of this. It was the shock -of full discovery later that brought me to my senses, when, seeking to -withdraw,--I found I could not." - -"And so you ran away." It came out bluntly enough, with a touch of -scorn but ill concealed. - -"We discharged him. But before that came there was more I have to -tell you--if you still care to hear it." - -"I'm not tired, if that's what you mean. I could listen all night, as far -as that goes." - -He rose to stretch his legs a moment, and Stahl rose too--instantly. -Together they leaned over the bulwarks. The German's hat was off and -the air made by the steamer's passage drew his beard out. The warm soft -wind brought odors of sea and shore. It caressed their faces, then passed -on across those sleeping peasants on the lower deck. The masts and -rigging swung steadily against the host of stars. - -"Before I thus knew myself half caught," continued the doctor, standing -now close enough beside him for actual contact, "and found it difficult -to get away, other things had happened, things that confirmed the change -so singularly begun in me. They happened everywhere; confirmation came -from many quarters; though slight enough, they filled in all the gaps and -crevices, strengthened the joints, and built the huge illusion round me -all complete until it held me like a prison. - -"And they are difficult to tell. Only, indeed, to yourself who underwent -a similar experience up there in the mountains, could they bring much -meaning. You had the same temptation and you--weathered the same storm." -He caught O'Malley's arm a moment and held it. "You escaped this madness -just as I did, and you will realize what I mean when I say that the -sensation of losing my sense of personal identity became so dangerously, -so seductively strong. The feeling of extended consciousness became -delicious--too delicious to resist. A kind of pagan joy and exultation -known to some in early youth, but put away with the things of youth, -possessed me. In the presence of this other's soul, so strangely powerful -in its silence and simplicity, I felt as though I touched new sources of -life. I tapped them. They poured down and flooded me--with dreams--dreams -that could really haunt--with unsettling thoughts of glory and delight -_beyond the body_. I got clean away into Nature. I felt as though some -portion of me just awakening reached out across him into rain and -sunshine, far up into the sweet and starry sky--as a tree growing out of -a thicket that chokes its lower part finds light and freedom at the top." - -"It caught you badly, doctor," O'Malley murmured. "The gods came close!" - -"So badly that I loathed the prisoned darkness that held me so thickly -in the body. I longed to know my being all dispersed through Nature, -scattered with dew and wind, shining with the star-light and the sun. -And the manner of escape I hinted to you a little while ago came to -seem right and necessary. Lawful it seemed, and obvious. The mania -literally obsessed me, though still I tried to hide it even from myself -... and struggled in resistance." - -"You spoke just now of other things that came to confirm it," the -Irishman said while the other paused to take breath. All this he knew. -He grew weary of Stahl's clever laboring the point that it was madness. -A little knowledge is ever dangerous, and he saw so clearly why the -hesitation of the merely intellectual man had led him into error. "Did -you mean that others acknowledged this influence as well as yourself?" - -"You shall read that for yourself tomorrow," came the answer, "in the -detailed report I drew up afterwards; it is far too long to tell you now. -But, I may mention something of it. That breaking out of patients was -a curious thing, their trying to escape, their dreams and singing, their -efforts sometimes to approach his room, their longing for the open and -the gardens; the deep, prolonged entrancing of a few; the sounds of -rushing, tramping that they, too, heard, the violence of some, the silent -ecstasy of others. The thing may find its parallel, perhaps, in the -collective mania that sometimes afflicts religious communities, in -monasteries or convents. Only here there was no preacher and eloquent -leader to induce hysteria--nothing but that silent dynamo of power, -gentle and winning as a little child, a being who could not put a phrase -together, exerting his potent spell unconsciously, and chiefly while he -slept. - -"For the phenomena almost without exception came in the night, and often -at their fullest strength, as afterwards reported to me, while I dozed in -his room and watched beside his motionless and slumbering form. Oh, and -there was more as well, much more, as you shall read. The stories my -assistants brought me, the tales of frightened nurse and warder, the -amazing yarns the porter stammered out, of strangers who had rung the -bell at dawn, trying to push past him through the door, saying they were -messengers and had been summoned, sent for, had to come,--large, curious, -windy figures, or, as he sometimes called them with unconscious humor, -'like creatures out of fairy books or circuses' that always vanished as -suddenly as they came. Making every allowance for excitement and -exaggeration, the tales were strange enough, I can assure you, and the -way many of the patients knew their visions intensified, their illusions -doubly strengthened, their efforts even to destroy themselves in many -cases almost more than the staff could deal with--all this brought the -matter to a climax and made my duty very plain at last." - -"And the effect upon yourself--at its worst?" asked his listener quietly. - -Stahl sighed wearily a little as he answered with a new-found sadness -in his tone. - -"I've told you briefly that," he said; "repetition cannot strengthen it. -The worthlessness of the majority of human aims today expresses it -Best--what you have called yourself the 'horror of civilization.' The -vanity of all life's modern, so-called up-to-date tendencies for outer, -mechanical developments. A wild, mad beauty streaming from that man's -personality overran the whole place and caught the lot of us, myself -especially, with a lust for simple, natural things, and with a passion -for spiritual beauty to accompany them. Fame, wealth, position seemed the -shadows then, and something else it's hard to name announced itself as -the substance.... I wanted to clear out and live with Nature, to know -simplicity, unselfish purposes, a golden state of childlike existence -close to dawns and dew and running water, cared for by woods and blessed -by all the winds...." He paused again for breath, then added:-- - -"And that's just where the mania caught at me so cunningly--till I -saw it and called a halt." - -"Ah!" - -"For the thing I sought, the thing _he_ knew, and perhaps remembered, -was not possible _in the body_. It was a spiritual state--" - -"Or to be known subjectively!" O'Malley checked him. - -"I am no lotus-eater by nature," he went on with energy, "and so I -fought and conquered it. But first, I tell you, it came upon me like a -tempest--a hurricane of wonder and delight. I've always held, like -yourself perhaps, that civilization brings its own army of diseases, and -that the few illnesses known to ruder savage races can be cured by simple -means the earth herself supplies. And along this line of thought the -thing swept into me--the line of my own head-learning. This was natural -enough; natural enough, too, that it thus at first deceived me. - -"For the quack cures of history come to this--herb simples and the -rest; only we know them now as sun-cure, water-cure, open-air cure, old -Kneipp, sea-water, and a hundred others. Doctors have never swarmed -before as they do now, and these artificial diseases civilization brings -in such quantity seemed all at once to mean the abeyance of some central -life or power men ought to share with--Nature.... You shall read it -all in my written report. I merely wish to show you now how the -insidious thing got at me along the line of my special knowledge. I saw -the truth that priests and doctors are the only possible and necessary -'professions' in the world, and--that they should be really but a single -profession...." - - - - -XLIV - - -He drew suddenly back with a kind of jerk. It was as though he realized -abruptly that he had said too much--had overdone it. He took his -companion by the arm and led him down the decks. - -As they passed the bridge the Captain called out a word of welcome -to them; and his jolly, boisterous laugh ran down the wind. The -American engineer came from behind a dark corner, almost running -into them; his face was flushed. "It's like a furnace below," he said in -his nasal familiar manner; "too hot to sleep. I've run up for a gulp of -air." He made as though he would join them. - -"The wind's behind us, yes," replied the doctor in a different tone, -"and there's no draught." With a gesture, half bow, half dismissal, he -made even this thick-skinned member of "the greatest civilization on -earth" understand he was not wanted. And they turned at the cabin door, -O'Malley a moment wondering at the admirable dignity with which the -"little" man had managed the polite dismissal. - -Himself, perhaps, he would not have minded the diversion. He was a little -weary of the German's long recital. The confession had not been complete, -he felt. Much had been held back. It was not altogether straightforward. -The dishonesty which hides in compromise peeped through it everywhere. - -And the incoherence of the latter part had almost bored him. For it -was, he easily divined, a studied incoherence. It was meant to touch a -similar weakness in himself--if there. But it was _not_ there. He saw -through the whole manoeuvre. Stahl wished to warn and save him by -showing that the experience they had partly shared was nothing but a -strange mental disorder. He wished to force in this subtle way his own -interpretation of it upon his friend. Yet at the same time the intuitive -Irishman discerned that other tendency in the man which would so -gladly perhaps have welcomed a different explanation, and even in some -fashion did actually accept it. - -O'Malley smiled inwardly as he watched him prepare the coffee as of -old. And patiently he waited for the rest that was to come. In a certain -sense it all was useful. It would be helpful later. This was an attitude -he would often have to face when he returned to civilized life and tried -to tell his Message to the thinking, educated men of today--the men he -must win over somehow to his dream--the men, without whose backing, no -Movement could hope to meet with even a measure of success. - -"So, like myself," said Stahl, as he carefully tended the flame of the -spirit-lamp between them, "you have escaped by the skin of your teeth, -as it were. And I congratulate you--heartily." - -"I thank you," said the other dryly. - -"You write your version now, and I'll write mine--indeed it is already -almost finished--then we'll compare notes. Perhaps we might even -publish them together." - -He poured out the fragrant coffee. They faced each other across the -little table. But O'Malley did not take the bait. He wished to hear the -balance his companion still might tell. - -And presently he asked for it. - -"With the discharge of your patient the trouble ceased at once, then?" - -"Comparatively soon. It gradually subsided, yes." - -"And as regards yourself?" - -"I came back to my senses. I recovered my control. The insubordinate -impulses I had known retired." He smiled as he sipped his coffee. "You -see me now," he added, looking his companion steadily in the eyes, "a -sane and commonplace ship's doctor." - -"I congratulate you--" - -"_Vielen Dank._" He bowed. - -"On what you missed, yet almost accomplished," the other finished. -"You might have known, like me, the cosmic consciousness! You might -have met the gods!" - -"In a strait-waistcoat," the doctor added with a snap. - -They laughed at one another across their coffee cups as once before -they had laughed across their glasses of Kakhetian wine--two eternally -antagonistic types that will exist as long as life itself. - -But, contrary to his expectations, the German had little more to tell. -He mentioned how the experience had led his mind into strange and -novel reading in his desire to know what other minds might have to -offer by way of explanation, even the most fanciful and far-fetched. He -told, though very briefly, how he had picked up Fechner among others, -and carefully studied his "poetic theories," and read besides the best -accounts of "spiritistic" phenomena, as also of the rarer states of -hysteria, double-consciousness, multiple personality, and even those -looser theories which suggest that a portion of the human constitution -called "astral" or "etheric" may escape from the parent center and, -carrying with it the subtler forces of desire and yearning, construct a -vivid subjective state of mind which is practically its Heaven of hope -and longing all fulfilled. - -He did not, however, betray the results upon himself of all this curious -reading and study, nor mention what he found of truth or probability in -it all. He merely quoted books and authors, in at least three languages, -that stretched in a singular and catholic array from Plato and the -Neo-Platonists across the ages to Myers, Du Prel, Flournoy, Lodge, and -Morton Prince. - -Out of the lot, perhaps,--O'Malley gathered it by inference rather -than from actual statement, from fragments of their talks upon the -outward voyage more than from anything let fall just then--Fechner -had proved the most persuasive to this man's contradictory and original -mind. It certainly seemed, at least, as if he knew some secret -sympathetic leaning toward the idea that consciousness and matter were -inseparable, and that a Cosmic Consciousness "of sorts" might pertain to -the Earth as, equally, to all the other stars and planets. The _Urwelt_ -idea he so often referred to had seized a part of his imagination--that, -at least, was clear. - -The Irishman drank it all in, but he was too exhausted now to argue, -and too full besides to ask questions. His natural volubility forsook -him. He let the doctor have his say without interruptions. He took the -warnings with the rest of it. Nothing the other said had changed him. - -It was not the first sunrise they had watched together, and as they -took the morning air on deck once more, Corsica rising like a dream -the night had left behind her on the sea, he listened with fainter -interest to the German's concluding sentences. - -"At any rate you now understand why on that other voyage I was so -eager to watch you with your friend, so keen to separate you, to prevent -your sleeping with him, and at the same time so desirous to see his -influence upon you at close quarters; and also--why I always understood -so well what was going on both outwardly and within." - -O'Malley quietly reiterated the belief he still held in the power of his -own dream. - -"I shall go home and give my message to the world," was what he said -quietly. "I think it's true." - -"It's better to keep silent," was the answer, "for, even if true, the -world is not ready yet to listen. It will evaporate, you'll find, in the -telling. You'll find there's nothing to tell. Besides, a dream like yours -must dawn on all at once, and not on merely one. No one will understand -you." - -"I can but try." - -"You will reach no men of action; and few of intellect. You will merely -stuff the dreamers who are already stuffed enough. What is the use, I -ask you? What is the use?" - -"It will set the world on fire for simplicity," the other murmured, -knowing the great sweet passion flame within him as he watched the -sun come slowly out of the rosy sea. "All the use in the world." - -"None," was the laconic answer. - -"They might know the gods!" cried O'Malley, using the phrase that -symbolized for him the entire Vision. - -Stahl looked at him for some time before he spoke. Again that -expression of wistful, almost longing admiration shone in the brown -eyes. - -"My friend," he answered gravely, "men do not want to know the gods. They -prefer their delights less subtle. They crave the cruder physical -sensations that bang them toward excitement--" - -"Of disease, of pain, of separateness," put in the other. - -The German shrugged his shoulders. "It's the stage they're at," he -said. "You, if you have success, will merely make a few uncomfortable. -The majority will hardly turn their heads. To one in a million you may -bring peace and happiness." - -"It's worth it," cried the Irishman, "even for that one!" - -Stahl answered very gently, smiling with his new expression of tenderness -and sympathy. "Dream your great dream if you will, but dream it, my -friend, alone--in peace and silence. That 'one' I speak of is yourself." - -The doctor pressed his hand and turned toward his cabin. O'Malley -stood a little longer to share the sunrise. Neither spoke another word. -He heard the door shut softly behind him. The unspoken answer in his -mind was in two words--two common little adjectives: "Coward and -selfish!" - -But Stahl, once in the privacy of his cabin, judging by the glance -visible on his face ere he closed the door, may probably have known a -very different thought. And possibly he uttered it below his breath. A -sigh most certainly escaped his lips, a sigh half sadness, half relief. -For O'Malley remembered it afterwards. - -"Beautiful, foolish dreamer among men! But, thank God, harmless--to -others and--himself." - -And soon afterwards O'Malley also went to his cabin. Before sleep took -him he lay deep in a mood of sadness--almost as though he had heard his -friend's unspoken thought. He realized the insuperable difficulties -that lay before him. The world would think him "mad but harmless." - -Then, with full sleep, he slipped across that sunrise and found the -old-world Garden. He held the eternal password. - -"I can but try...!" - - - - -XLV - - -And here the crowded, muddled notebooks come to an end. The rest was -action--and inevitable disaster. - -The brief history of O'Malley's mad campaign may be imagined. To a writer -who found interest in the study of forlorn hopes and their leaders, a -detailed record of this particular one might seem worth while. For me -personally it is too sad and too pathetic. I cannot bring myself to tell, -much less to analyze the story of a broken heart, when that heart and -story are those of a close and deeply admired intimate, a man who gave me -genuine love and held my own. - -Besides, although a curious chapter in uncommon human nature, it -is not by any means a new one. It is the true story of many a poet and -dreamer since the world began, though perhaps not often told nor even -guessed. And only the poets themselves, especially the little poets who -cannot utter half the fire that consumes them, may know the searing -pain and passion and the true inwardness of it all. - -Most of those months it chanced I was away, and only fragments of -the foolish enterprise could reach me. But nothing, I think, could have -stopped him, nor any worldly selfish wisdom made him even pause. -The thing possessed him utterly; it had to flame its way out as best it -could. To high and low, he preached by every means in his power the -Simple Life; he preached the mystical life as well--that the true -knowledge and the true progress are within, that they both pertain to -the inner being and have no chief concern with external things. He -preached it wildly, lopsidedly, in or out of season, knowing no half -measures. His enthusiasm obscured his sense of proportion and the -extravagance hid the germ of truth that undeniably lay in his message. - -To put the movement on its feet at first he realized every possession -that he had. It left him penniless, if he was not almost so already, and -in the end it left him smothered beneath the glory of his blinding and -unutterable Dream. He never understood that suggestion is more effective -than a sledge-hammer. His faith was no mere little seed of mustard, -but a full-fledged forest singing its message in a wind of thunder. He -shouted it aloud to the world. - -I think the acid disappointment that lies beneath that trite old phrase -"a broken heart" was never really his; for indeed it seemed that his -cruel, ludicrous failure merely served to strengthen hope and purpose by -making him seek for a better method of imparting what he had to say. -In the end he learned the bitter lesson to the full. But faith never -trailed a single feather. Those jeering audiences in the Park; those -empty benches in many a public hall, those brief, ignoring paragraphs in -the few newspapers that filled a vacant corner by labeling him crank and -long-haired prophet; even the silence that greeted his pamphlets, his -letters to the Press, and all the rest, hurt him for others rather than -for himself. His pain was altruistic, never personal. His dream and -motive, his huge, unwieldy compassion, his genuine love for humanity, all -were big enough for that. - -And so, I think, he missed the personal mortification that disappointment -so deep might bring to dreamers with an aim less unadulteratedly -pure. His eye was single to the end. He attributed only the highest -motives to all who offered help. The very quacks and fools who flocked -to his banner, eager to exploit their smaller fads by joining them to his -own, he welcomed, only regretting that, as Stahl had warned him, he -could not attract a better class of mind. He did not even see through -the manoeuvres of the occasional women of wealth and title who sought -to conceal their own mediocrity by advertising in their drawing-rooms -the eccentricities of men like himself. And to the end he had the courage -of his glorious convictions. - -The change of method that he learned at last, moreover, was -characteristic of this faith and courage. - -"I've begun at the wrong end," he said; "I shall never reach men through -their intellects. Their brains today are occupied by the machine-made -gods of civilization. I cannot change the direction of their thoughts and -lusts from outside; the momentum is too great to stop that way. I must -get at them from within. To reach their hearts, the new ideas must rise -up _from within_. I see the truer way. I must do it _from the other -side_. It must come to them--in Beauty." - -For he was to the last convinced that death would merge him in the -being of the Earth's Collective Consciousness, and that, lost in her deep -eternal beauty, he thus might reach the hearts of men in some stray -glimpse of nature's loveliness, and register his flaming message. He -loved to quote from Adonais: - -"He is made one with Nature: there is heard -His voice in all her music, from the moan -Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; -He is a presence to be felt and known -In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, -Spreading itself where'er that Power may move -Which has withdrawn his being to its own. -He is a portion of the loveliness -Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear -His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress -Sweeps through the dull dense world..." - -And this thought, phrased in a dozen different ways, was always on his -lips. To dream was right and useful, even to dream alone, because the -beauty of the dream must add to the beauty of the Whole of which it is a -part and an interpretation. It was not really lost or vain. All must come -back in time to feed the world. He had known gracious thoughts of Earth -too big to utter, almost too big to hold. Such thoughts could not ever be -really told; they were incommunicable. For the mystical revelation is -incommunicable. It has authority only for him who feels it. A corporate -revelation is impossible. Only those among men could know, in whose -hearts it rose intuitively and made its presence felt as innate ideas. -Inspiration brings it, and beauty is the vehicle. Their hearts must -change before their minds could be reached. - -"I can work it better from the other side--from that old, old Garden -which is the Mother's heart. In this way I can help at any rate...!" - - - - -XLVI - - -It was at the close of a wet and foggy autumn that we met again, winter -in the air, all London desolate; and his wasted, forlorn appearance told -me the truth at once. Only the passionate eagerness of voice and manner -were there to prove that the spirit had not weakened. There glowed within -a fire that showed itself in the translucent shining of the eyes and -face. - -"I've made one great discovery, old man," he exclaimed with old, -familiar, high enthusiasm, "one great discovery at least." - -"You've made so many," I answered cheerfully, while my real thoughts were -busy with his bodily state of health. For his appearance shocked me. He -stood among a litter of papers, books, neckties, nailed boots, knapsacks, -maps and what-not, that rolled upon the floor from the mouth of the -Willesden canvas sack. His old grey flannel suit hung literally upon a -bag of bones; all the life there was seemed concentrated in his face and -eyes--those far-seeing, light blue eyes. They were darker than usual now, -eyes like the sea, I thought. His hair, long and disordered, -tumbled over his forehead. He was pale, and at the same time flushed. It -was almost a disembodied spirit that I saw. - -"You've made so many. I love to hear them. Is this one finer than the -others?" - -He looked a moment at me through and through, almost uncannily. He looked -in reality beyond me. It was something else he saw, and in the dusk I -turned involuntarily. - -"Simpler," he said quickly, "much simpler." - -He moved up close beside me, whispering. Was it all imagination that a -breath of flowers came with him? There was certainly a curious fragrance -in the air, wild and sweet like orchards in the spring. - -"And it is--?" - -"That the Garden's _everywhere!_ You needn't go to the distant Caucasus -to find it. It's all about this old London town, and in these foggy -streets and dingy pavements. It's even in this cramped, undusted room. -Now at this moment, while that lamp flickers and the thousands go to -sleep. The gates of horn and ivory are here," he tapped his breast. "And -here the flowers, the long, clean open hills, the giant herd, the nymphs, -the sunshine and the gods!" - -So attached was he now to that little room in Paddington where his books -and papers lay, that when the curious illness that had caught him grew so -much worse, and the attacks of the nameless fever that afflicted him -turned serious, I hired a bedroom for him in the same house. And it was -in that poky, cage-like den he breathed his last. - -His illness I called curious, his fever nameless, because they really -were so and puzzled every one. He simply faded out of life, it seemed; -there was no pain, no sleeplessness, no suffering of any physical kind. -He uttered no complaint, nor were there symptoms of any known -disorder. - -"Your friend is sound organically," the doctor told me when I pressed him -for the truth there on the stairs, "sound as a bell. He wants the open -air and plenty of wholesome food, that's all. His body is ill-nourished. -His trouble is mental--some deep and heavy disappointment doubtless. If -you can change the current of his thoughts, awaken interest in common -things, and give him change of scene, perhaps--" He shrugged his -shoulders and looked very grave. - -"You think he's dying?" - -"I think, yes, he is dying." - -"From--?" - -"From lack of living pure and simple," was the answer. "He has lost -all hold on life." - -"He has abundant vitality still." - -"Full of it. But it all goes--elsewhere. The physical organism gets -none of it." - -"Yet mentally," I asked, "there's nothing actually wrong?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense. The mind is clear and active. So far as I -can test it, the process of thought is healthy and undamaged. It seems -to me--" - -He hesitated a moment on the doorstep while the driver wound the -motor handle. I waited with a sinking heart for the rest of the sentence. - -"...like certain cases of nostalgia I have known--very rare and very -difficult to deal with. Acute and vehement nostalgia, yes, sometimes -called a broken heart," he added, pausing another instant at the carriage -door, "in which the entire stream of a man's inner life flows to some -distant place, or person, or--or to some imagined yearning that he -craves to satisfy." - -"To a dream?" - -"It _might_ be even that," he answered slowly, stepping in. "It might be -spiritual. The religious and poetic temperament are most open to it, -_and_ the most difficult to deal with when afflicted." He emphasized the -little word as though the doubt he felt was far less strong than the -conviction he only half concealed. "If you would save him, try to change -the direction of his thoughts. There is nothing--in all honesty I must -say it--nothing that I can do to help." - -And then, pulling at the grey tuft on his chin and looking keenly at me a -moment over his glasses,--"Those flowers," he said hesitatingly, "you -might move those flowers from the room, perhaps. Their perfume is a -trifle strong ... It might be better." Again he looked sharply at me. -There was an odd expression in his eyes. And in my heart there was an -odd sensation too, so odd that I found myself bereft a moment of any -speech at all, and when my tongue became untied, the carriage was -already disappearing down the street. For in that dingy sick-room there -were no flowers at all, yet the perfume of woods and fields and open -spaces had reached the doctor too, and obviously perplexed him. - -"Change the direction of his thoughts!" I went indoors, wondering -how any honest and even half-unselfish friend, knowing what I knew, -could follow such advice. With what but the lowest motive, of keeping -him alive for my own happiness, could I seek to change his thoughts -of some imagined joy and peace to the pain and sordid facts of an -earthly existence that he loathed? - -But when I turned I saw the tousled yellow-headed landlady standing -in the breach. Mrs. Heath stopped me in the hall to inquire whether I -could say "anythink abart the rent per'aps?" Her manner was defiant. I -found three months were owing. - -"It's no good arsking 'im," she said, though not unkindly on the -whole. "I'm sick an' tired of always being put off. He talks about the -gawds and a Mr. Pan, or some such gentleman who he says will look -after it all. But I never sees 'im--not this Mr. Pan. And his stuff up -there," jerking her head toward the little room, "ain't worth a -Sankey-moody 'ymn-book, take the lot of it at cost!" - -I reassured her. It was impossible to help smiling. For some minds, -I reflected, a Sankey hymn-book might hold dreams that were every bit -as potent as his own, and far less troublesome. But that "Mr. Pan, or -some such gentleman" should serve as a "reference" between lodger and -landlady was an unwitting comment on the modern point of view that -made me want to cry rather than to laugh. O'Malley and Mrs. Heath -between them had made a profounder criticism than they knew. - - * * * * * - -And so by slow degrees he went, leaving the outer fury for the inner -peace. The center of consciousness gradually shifted from the transient -form which is the true ghost, to the deeper, permanent state which is -the eternal reality. For this was how he phrased it to me in one of our -last, strange talks. He watched his own withdrawal. - -In bed he would lie for hours with fixed and happy eyes, staring -apparently at nothing, the expression on his face quite radiant. The -pulse sank often dangerously low; he scarcely seemed to breathe; yet it -was never complete unconsciousness or trance. My voice, when I found the -heart to try and coax his own for speech, would win him back. The eyes -would then grow dimmer, losing their happier light, as he turned to the -outer world to look at me. - -"The pull is so tremendous now," he whispered; "I was far, so far -away, in the deep life of Earth. Why do you bring me back to all these -little pains? I can do nothing here; _there_ I am of use..." - -He spoke so low I had to bend my head to catch the words. It was -very late at night and for hours I had been watching by his side. Outside -an ugly yellow fog oppressed the town, but about him like an atmosphere -I caught again that fragrance as of trees and flowers. It was too -faint for any name--that fugitive, mild perfume one meets upon bare -hills and round the skirts of forests. It was somehow, I fancied, in the -very breath. - -"Each time the effort to return is greater. In there I am complete and -full of power. I can work and send my message back so splendidly. Here," -he glanced down at his wasted body with a curious smile, "I am only -on the fringe--it's pain and failure. All so ineffective." - -That other look came back into the eyes, more swiftly than before. - -"I thought you might like to speak, to tell me--something," I said, -keeping the tears with difficulty from my voice. "Is there no one you -would like to see?" - -He shook his head slowly, and gave the peculiar answer: - -"They're all in there." - -"But Stahl, perhaps--if I could get him here?" - -An expression of gentle disapproval crossed his face, then melted -softly into a wistful tenderness as of a child. - -"He's not there--yet," he whispered, "but he will come too in the -end. In sleep, I think, he goes there even now." - -"Where are you _really_ then?" I ventured, "And where is it you go to?" - -The answer came unhesitatingly; there was no doubt or searching. - -"Into myself, my real and deeper self, and so beyond it into her--the -Earth. Where all the others are--all, all, all." - -And then he frightened me by sitting up in bed abruptly. His eyes -stared past me--out beyond the close confining walls. The movement -was so startling with its suddenness and vigor that I shrank back a -moment. The head was sideways. He was intently listening. - -"Hark!" he whispered. "They are calling me! Do you hear...?" - -The look of joy that broke over the face like sunshine made me hold -my breath. Something in his low voice thrilled me beyond all I have -ever known. I listened too. Only the rumble of the traffic down the -distant main street broke the silence, the rattle of a nearer cart, and -the footsteps of a few pedestrians. No other noises came across the -night. There was no wind. Thick yellow fog muffled everything. - -"I hear nothing," I answered softly. "What is it that _you_ hear?" - -And, making no reply, he presently lay down again among the pillows, that -look of joy and glory still upon his face. It lay there to the end like -sunrise. - -The fog came in so thickly through the window that I rose to close -it. He never closed that window, and I hoped he would not notice. For -a sound of wretched street-music was coming nearer--some beggar playing -dismally upon a penny whistle--and I feared it would disturb him. But in -a flash he was up again. - -"No, no!" he cried, raising his voice for the first time that night. "Do -not shut it. I shan't be able to hear then. Let all the air come in. Open -it wider... wider! I love that sound!" - -"The fog--" - -"There is no fog. It's only sun and flowers and music. Let them in. -Don't you hear it now?" he added. And, more to bring him peace than -anything else, I bowed my head to signify agreement. For the last -confusion of the mind, I saw, was upon him, and he made the outer -world confirm some imagined detail of his inner dream. I drew the sash -down lower, covering his body closely with the blankets. He flung them -off impatiently at once. The damp and freezing night rushed in upon -us like a presence. It made me shudder, but O'Malley only raised himself -upon one elbow to taste it better, and--to listen. - -Then, waiting patiently for the return of the quiet, trance-like state -when I might cover him again, I moved toward the window and looked -out. The street was empty, save for that beggar playing vilely on his -penny whistle. The wretch came to a standstill immediately before the -house. The lamplight fell from the room upon his tattered, broken -figure. I could not see his face. He groped and felt his way. - -Outside that homeless wanderer played his penny pipe in the night -of cold and darkness. - -Inside the Dreamer listened, dreaming of his gods and garden, his -great Earth Mother, his visioned life of peace and simple things with a -living Nature... - -And I felt somehow that player watched us. I made an angry sign to -him to go. But it was the sudden touch upon my arm that made me -turn round with such a sudden start that I almost cried aloud. O'Malley -in his night-clothes stood close against me on the floor, slight as a -spirit, eyes a-shine, lips moving faintly into speech through the most -wonderful smile a human face has ever shown me. - -"Do not send him away," he whispered, joy breaking from him like -a light, "but tell him that I love it. Go out and thank him. Tell him I -hear and understand, and say that I am coming. Will you...?" - -Something within me whirled. It seemed that I was lifted from my -feet a moment. Some tide of power rushed from his person to my own. -The room was filled with blinding light. But in my heart there rose a -great emotion that combined tears and joy and laughter all at once. - -"The moment you are back in bed," I heard my voice like one speaking from -a distance, "I'll go--" - -The momentary, wild confusion passed as suddenly as it came. I -remember he obeyed at once. As I bent down to tuck the clothes about -him, that fragrance as of flowers and open spaces rose about my bending -face like incense--bewilderingly sweet. - -And the next second I was standing in the street. The man who played -upon the pipe, I saw, was blind. His hand and fingers were curiously -large. - -I was already close, ready to press all that my pockets held into his -hand--ay, and far more than merely pockets held because O'Malley -said he loved the music--when something made me turn my head away. -I cannot say precisely what it was, for first it seemed a tapping at the -window of his room behind me, and then a little noise within the room -itself, and next--more curious than either,--a feeling that something -came out rushing past me through the air. It whirled and shouted as it -went... - -I only remember clearly that in the very act of turning, and while my -look still held that beggar's face within the field of vision, I saw the -sightless eyes turn bright a moment as though he opened them and saw. -He did most certainly smile; to that I swear. - -But when I turned again the street immediately about me was empty. -The beggar-man was gone. - -And down the pavement, moving swiftly through the curtain of fog, -I saw his vanishing figure. It was large and spreading. In the fringe of -light the lamp-post gave, its upper edges seemed far above the ground. -Someone else was with him. There were two figures. - -I heard that sound of piping far away. It sounded faint and almost -flute-like in the air. And in the mud at my feet the money lay--spurned -utterly. I heard the last coins ring upon the pavement as they settled. -But in the room, when I got back, the body of Terence O'Malley had -ceased to breathe. - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Centaur, by Algernon Blackwood - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - -***** This file should be named 9964-8.txt or 9964-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/6/9964/ - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - https://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/old-2025-05-15/9964-8.zip b/old/old-2025-05-15/9964-8.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7c3441c..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-05-15/9964-8.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old-2025-05-15/9964.txt b/old/old-2025-05-15/9964.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 17ae0e5..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-05-15/9964.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10300 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Centaur, by Algernon Blackwood - -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 Centaur - -Author: Algernon Blackwood - -Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9964] -Release Date: February, 2006 -First Posted: November 4, 2003 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team - - - - - - - - - - - - THE CENTAUR - - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - - 1911 - - - - -I - -"We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing -the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the -meaning of it all." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - -"... A man's vision is the great fact about him. Who cares for Carlyle's -reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's? A philosophy is the expression -of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the Universe are -but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters upon it." - ---Ibid - - -"There are certain persons who, independently of sex or comeliness, -arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The tribe is small, -but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither fortune, good -looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the stupid name good -luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality which proclaims that -they have overtaken Fate, set a harness about its neck of violence, and -hold bit and bridle in steady hands. - -"Most of us, arrested a moment by their presence to snatch the definition -their peculiarity exacts, are aware that on the heels of curiosity -follows--envy. They know the very things that we forever seek in vain. -And this diagnosis, achieved as it were _en passant_, comes near to the -truth, for the hallmark of such persons is that they have found, and -come into, their own. There is a sign upon the face and in the eyes. -Having somehow discovered the 'piece' that makes them free of the whole -amazing puzzle, they know where they belong and, therefore, whither they -are bound: more, they are definitely _en route_. The littlenesses of -existence that plague the majority pass them by. - -"For this reason, if for no other," continued O'Malley, "I count my -experience with that man as memorable beyond ordinary. 'If for no other,' -because from the very beginning there was another. Indeed, it was -probably his air of unusual bigness, massiveness rather,--head, face, -eyes, shoulders, especially back and shoulders,--that struck me first -when I caught sight of him lounging there hugely upon my steamer deck at -Marseilles, winning my instant attention before he turned and the -expression on his great face woke more--woke curiosity, interest, envy. -He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge of mild -surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less than -perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child--almost of an -animal--shone in the large brown eyes--" - -"You mean that the physical quality caught you first, then the -psychical?" I asked, keeping him to the point, for his Irish imagination -was ever apt to race away at a tangent. - -He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. "I believe that to be -the truth," he replied, his face instantly grave again. "It was the -impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition--blessed if I know -how--leading me to the other. The size of his body did not smother, as so -often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed. At the moment I -could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only this overwhelming -attraction of the man's personality caught me and I longed to make -friends. That's the way with me, as you know," he added, tossing the hair -back from his forehead impatiently,"--pretty often. First impressions. -Old man, I tell you, it was like a possession." - -"I believe you," I said. For Terence O'Malley all his life had never -understood half measures. - - - - -II - -"The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for -civilization, or is he past it, and mastering it?" - ---WHITMAN - -"We find ourselves today in the midst of a somewhat peculiar state of -society, which we call Civilization, but which even to the most -optimistic among us does not seem altogether desirable. Some of us, -indeed, are inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which the -various races of man have to pass through.... - -"While History tells us of many nations that have been attacked by it, of -many that have succumbed to it, and of some that are still in the throes -of it, we know of no single case in which a nation has fairly recovered -from and passed through it to a more normal and healthy condition. In -other words, the development of human society has never yet (that we know -of) passed beyond a certain definite and apparently final stage in the -process we call Civilization; at that stage it has always succumbed or -been arrested." - ---EDWARD CARPENTER, _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_ - - -O'Malley himself is an individuality that invites consideration from the -ruck of commonplace men. Of mingled Irish, Scotch, and English blood, the -first predominated, and the Celtic element in him was strong. A man of -vigorous health, careless of gain, a wanderer, and by his own choice -something of an outcast, he led to the end the existence of a rolling -stone. He lived from hand to mouth, never quite growing up. It seemed, -indeed, that he never could grow up in the accepted sense of the term, -for his motto was the reverse of _nil admirari_, and he found himself in -a state of perpetual astonishment at the mystery of things. He was -forever deciphering the huge horoscope of Life, yet getting no further -than the House of Wonder, on whose cusp surely he had been born. -Civilization, he loved to say, had blinded the eyes of men, filling them -with dust instead of vision. - -An ardent lover of wild outdoor life, he knew at times a high, passionate -searching for things of the spirit, when the outer world fell away like -dross and he seemed to pass into a state resembling ecstasy. Never in -cities or among his fellow men, struggling and herded, did these times -come to him, but when he was abroad with the winds and stars in desolate -places. Then, sometimes, he would be rapt away, caught up to see the -tail-end of the great procession of the gods that had come near. He -surprised Eternity in a running Moment. - -For the moods of Nature flamed through him--_in_ him--like presences, -potently evocative as the presences of persons, and with meanings equally -various: the woods with love and tenderness; the sea with reverence and -magic; plains and wide horizons with the melancholy peace and silence as -of wise and old companions; and mountains with a splendid terror due to -some want of comprehension in himself, caused probably by a spiritual -remoteness from their mood. - -The Cosmos, in a word, for him was psychical, and Nature's moods were -transcendental cosmic activities that induced in him these singular -states of exaltation and expansion. She pushed wide the gateways of his -deeper life. She entered, took possession, dipped his smaller self into -her own enormous and enveloping personality. - -He possessed a full experience, and at times a keen judgment, of modern -life; while underneath, all the time, lay the moving sea of curiously -wild primitive instincts. An insatiable longing for the wilderness was in -his blood, a craving vehement, unappeasable. Yet for something far -greater than the wilderness alone--the wilderness was merely a symbol, a -first step, indication of a way of escape. The hurry and invention of -modern life were to him a fever and a torment. He loathed the million -tricks of civilization. At the same time, being a man of some -discrimination at least, he rarely let himself go completely. Of these -wilder, simpler instincts he was afraid. They might flood all else. If he -yielded entirely, something he dreaded, without being able to define, -would happen; the structure of his being would suffer a nameless -violence, so that he would have to break with the world. These cravings -stood for that loot of the soul which he must deny himself. Complete -surrender would involve somehow a disintegration, a dissociation of -his personality that carried with it the loss of personal identity. - -When the feeling of revolt became sometimes so urgent in him that it -threatened to become unmanageable, he would go out into solitude, calling -it to heel; but this attempt to restore order, while easing his nature, -was never radical; the accumulation merely increased on the rebound; the -yearnings grew and multiplied, and the point of saturation was often -dangerously near. "Some day," his friends would say, "there'll be a -bursting of the dam." And, though their meaning might be variously -interpreted, they spoke the truth. O'Malley knew it, too. - -A man he was, in a word, of deep and ever-shifting moods, and with more -difficulty than most in recognizing the underlying self of which these -outer aspects were projections masquerading as complete personalities. - -The underlying ego that unified these projections was of the type -touched with so sure a hand in the opening pages of an inspired little -book: _The Plea of Pan_. O'Malley was useless as a citizen and knew it. -Sometimes--he was ashamed of it as well. - -Occasionally, and at the time of this particular "memorable adventure," -aged thirty, he acted as foreign correspondent; but even as such he was -the kind of newspaper man that not merely collects news, but discovers, -reveals, creates it. Wise in their generation, the editors who -commissioned him remembered when his copy came in that they were editors. -A roving commission among the tribes of the Caucasus was his assignment -at the moment, and a better man for the purpose would have been hard to -find, since he knew beauty, had a keen eye for human nature, divined what -was vital and picturesque, and had, further, the power to set it down in -brief terms born directly of his vivid emotions. - -When first I knew him he lived--nowhere, being always on the move. He -kept, however, a dingy little room near Paddington where his books and -papers accumulated, undusted but safe, and where the manuscripts of his -adventures were found when his death made me the executor of his few -belongings. The key was in his pocket, carefully ticketed with a bone -label. And this, the only evidence of practical forethought I ever -discovered in him, was proof that something in that room was deemed by -him of value--to others. It certainly was not the heterogeneous -collection of second-hand books, nor the hundreds of unlabeled -photographs and sketches. Can it have been the MSS. of stories, notes, -and episodes I found, almost carefully piled and tabulated with titles, -in a dirty kitbag of green Willesden canvas? - -Some of these he had told me (with a greater vividness than he could -command by pen); others were new; many unfinished. All were unusual, -to say the least. All, too, had obviously happened to himself at some -period of his roving career, though here and there he had disguised his -own part in them by Hoffmann's device of throwing the action into the -third person. Those told to me by word of mouth I could only feel were -true, true for himself at least. In no sense were they mere inventions, -but arose in moments of vision upon a structure of solid events. Ten -men will describe in as many different ways a snake crossing their path; -but, besides these, there exists an eleventh man who sees more than the -snake, the path, the movement. O'Malley was some such eleventh man. He -saw the thing whole, from some kind of inner bird's-eye view, while the -ten saw only limited aspects of it from various angles. He was accused -of adding details, therefore, because he had divined their presence while -still below the horizon. Before they emerged the others had already left. - -By which I mean that he saw in commonplace events the movement of greater -tides than others saw. At one remove of time or distance--a minute or a -mile--he perceived _all_. While the ten chattered volubly about the name -of the snake, he was caught beyond by the beauty of the path, the glory -of the running glide, the nature of the forces that drove, hindered, -modified. - -The others reasoned where the snake was going, its length in inches and -its speed per second, while he, ignoring such superficial details, -plunged as it were into the very nature of the creature's being. And in -this idiosyncrasy, which he shared with all persons of mystical -temperament, is exemplified a certain curious contempt for Reason that he -had. For him mere intellectuality, by which the modern world sets such -store, was a valley of dry bones. Its worship was a worship of the form. -It missed the essential inner truth because such inner truth could be -known only by being it, feeling it. The intellectual attitude of mind, in -a word, was critical, not creative, and to be unimaginative seemed to -him, therefore, the worst form of unintelligence. - -"The arid, sterile minds!" he would cry in a burst of his Celtic -enthusiasm. "Where, I ask ye, did the philosophies and sciences of the -world assist the progress of any single soul a blessed inch?" - -Any little Dreamer in his top-floor back, spinning by rushlight his -web of beauty, was greater than the finest critical intelligence that -ever lived. The one, for all his poor technique, was stammering over -something God had whispered to him, the other merely destroying thoughts -invented by the brain of man. - -And this attitude of mind, because of its interpretative effect upon -what follows, justifies mention. For to O'Malley, in some way difficult -to explain, Reason and Intellect, as such, had come to be worshipped -by men today out of all proportion to their real value. Consciousness, -focused too exclusively upon them, had exalted them out of due proportion -in the spiritual economy. To make a god of them was to make an empty and -inadequate god. Reason should be the guardian of the soul's advance, but -not the object. Its function was that of a great sandpaper which should -clear the way of excrescences, but its worship was to allow a detail to -assume a disproportionate importance. - -Not that he was fool enough to despise Reason in what he called its -proper place, but that he was "wise" enough--not that he was -"intellectual" enough!--to recognize its futility in measuring the things -of the soul. For him there existed a more fundamental understanding than -Reason, and it was, apparently, an inner and natural understanding. - -"The greatest Teacher we ever had," I once heard him say, "ignored the -intellect, and who, will ye tell me, can by searching find out God? And -yet what else is worth finding out...? Isn't it only by becoming as a -little child--a child that feels and never reasons things--that any -one shall enter the kingdom...? Where will the giant intellects be before -the Great White Throne when a simple man with the heart of a child will -top the lot of 'em?" - -"Nature, I'm convinced," he said another time, though he said it with -puzzled eyes and a mind obviously groping, "is our next step. Reason -has done its best for centuries, and gets no further. It _can_ get no -further, for it can do nothing for the inner life which is the sole -reality. We must return to Nature and a purified intuition, to a greater -reliance upon what is now subconscious, back to that sweet, grave -guidance of the Universe which we've discarded with the primitive -state--a spiritual intelligence, really, divorced from mere -intellectuality." - -And by Nature he did not mean a return to savagery. There was no idea -of going backwards in his wild words. Rather he looked forwards, in some -way hard to understand, to a state when Man, with the best results of -Reason in his pocket, might return to the instinctive life--to feeling -_with_--to the sinking down of the modern, exaggerated intellectual -personality into its rightful place as guide instead of leader. He called -it a Return to Nature, but what he meant, I always felt, was back to a -sense of kinship with the Universe which men, through worshipping the -intellect alone, had lost. Men today prided themselves upon their -superiority to Nature as beings separate and apart. O'Malley sought, on -the contrary, a development, if not a revival, of some faultless -instinct, due to kinship with her, which--to take extremes--shall direct -alike the animal and the inspired man, guiding the wild bee and the -homing pigeon, and--the soul toward its God. - -This clue, as he called it, crystallized so neatly and so conclusively -his own mental struggles, that he had called a halt, as it were, to his -own intellectual development.... The name and family of the snake, hence, -meant to him the least important things about it. He caught, wildly yet -consistently, at the psychic links that bound the snake and Nature and -himself together with all creation. Troops of adventurous thoughts had -all his life "gone west" to colonize this land of speculative dream. True -to his idea, he "thought" with his emotions as much as with his brain, -and in the broken record of the adventure that this book relates, this -strange passion of his temperament remains the vital clue. For it -happened _in_, as well as to, himself. His Being could include the Earth -by feeling with her, whereas his intellect could merely criticize, and so -belittle, the details of such inclusion. - -Many a time, while he stretched credulity to a point, I have heard him -apologize in some such way for his method. It was the splendor of his -belief that made the thing so convincing in the telling, for later when -I found the same tale written down it seemed somehow to have failed -of an equal achievement. The truth was that no one language would -convey the extraordinary freight that was carried so easily by his -instinctive choice of gestures, tone, and glance. With him these were -consummately interpretative. - - * * * * * - -Before the age of thirty he had written and published a volume or two of -curious tales, all dealing with extensions of the personality, a subject -that interested him deeply, and one he understood because he drew the -material largely from himself. Psychology he simply devoured, even in its -most fantastic and speculative forms; and though perhaps his vision was -incalculably greater than his power of technique, these strange books had -a certain value and formed a genuine contribution to the thought on that -particular subject. In England naturally they fell dead, but their -translation into German brought him a wider and more intelligent circle. -The common public unfamiliar with Sally Beauchamp No. 4, with Helene -Smith, or with Dr. Hanna, found in these studies of divided personality, -and these singular extensions of the human consciousness, only -extravagance and imagination run to wildness. Yet, none the less, the -substratum of truth upon which O'Malley had built them, lay actually -within his own personal experience. The books had brought him here and -there acquaintances of value; and among these latter was a German doctor, -Heinrich Stahl. With Dr. Stahl the Irishman crossed swords through months -of somewhat irregular correspondence, until at length the two had met on -board a steamer where the German held the position of ship's doctor. The -acquaintanceship had grown into something approaching friendship, -although the two men stood apparently at the opposite poles of thought. -From time to time they still met. - -In appearance there was nothing unusual about O'Malley, unless it was the -contrast of the light blue eyes with the dark hair. Never, I think, did I -see him in anything but that old grey flannel suit, with the low collar -and shabby glistening tie. He was of medium height, delicately built, his -hands more like a girl's than a man's. In towns he shaved and looked -fairly presentable, but once upon his travels he grew beard and moustache -and would forget for weeks to have his hair cut, so that it fell in a -tangle over forehead and eyes. - -His manner changed with the abruptness of his moods. Sometimes active and -alert, at others for days together he would become absent, dreamy, -absorbed, half oblivious of the outer world, his movements and actions -dictated by subconscious instinct rather than regulated by volition. -And one cause of that loneliness of spirit which was undoubtedly a chief -pain in life to him, was the fact that ordinary folk were puzzled how to -take him, or to know which of these many extreme moods was the man -himself. Uncomfortable, unsatisfactory, elusive, not to be counted upon, -they deemed him: and from their point of view they were undoubtedly -right. The sympathy and above all the companionship he needed, genuinely -craved too, were thus denied to him by the faults of his own temperament. -With women his intercourse was of the slightest; in a sense he did not -know the need of them much. For one thing, the feminine element in his -own nature was too strong, and he was not conscious, as most men are, of -the great gap of incompleteness women may so exquisitely fill; and, for -another, its obvious corollary perhaps, when they did come into his life, -they gave him more than he could comfortably deal with. They offered him -more than he needed. - -In this way, while he perhaps had never fallen in love, as the saying has -it, he had certainly known that high splendor of devotion which means the -losing of oneself in others, that exalted love which seeks not any reward -of possession because it is itself so utterly possessed. He was pure, -too; in the sense that it never occurred to him to be otherwise. - -Chief cause of his loneliness--so far as I could judge his complex -personality at all--seemed that he never found a sympathetic, truly -understanding ear for those deeply primitive longings that fairly ravaged -his heart. And this very isolation made him often afraid; it proved that -the rest of the world, the sane majority at any rate, said No to them. I, -who loved him and listened, yet never quite apprehended his full meaning. -Far more than the common Call of the Wild, it was. He yearned, not so -much for a world savage, uncivilized, as for a perfectly natural one that -had never known, perhaps never needed civilization--a state of freedom in -a life unstained. - -He never wholly understood, I think, the reason why he found himself in -such stern protest against the modern state of things, why people -produced in him a state of death so that he turned from men to Nature--to -find life. The things the nations exclusively troubled themselves about -all seemed to him so obviously vain and worthless, and, though he never -even in his highest moments felt the claims of sainthood, it puzzled and -perplexed him deeply that the conquest over Nature in all its -multifarious forms today should seem to them so infinitely more important -than the conquest over self. What the world with common consent called -Reality, seemed ever to him the most crude and obvious, the most -transient, the most blatant un-Reality. His love of Nature was more than -the mere joy of tumultuous pagan instincts. It was, in the kind of simple -life he craved, the first step toward the recovery of noble, dignified, -enfranchised living. In the denial of all this external flummery he -hated, it would leave the soul disengaged and free, able to turn her -activities within for spiritual development. Civilization now suffocated, -smothered, killed the soul. Being in the hopeless minority, he felt he -must be somewhere wrong, at fault, deceived. For all men, from a -statesman to an engine-driver, agreed that the accumulation of external -possessions had value, and that the importance of material gain was -real.... Yet, for himself, he always turned for comfort to the Earth. -The wise and wonderful Earth opened her mind and her deep heart to him -in a way few other men seemed to know. Through Nature he could move -blind-folded along, yet find his way to strength and sympathy. A noble, -gracious life stirred in him then which the pettier human world denied. -He often would compare the thin help or fellowship he gained from -ordinary social intercourse, or from what had seemed at the time quite a -successful gathering of his kind, with the power he gained from a visit -to the woods or mountains. The former, as a rule, evaporated in a single -day; the other stayed, with ever growing power, to bless whole weeks and -months. - -And hence it was, whether owing to the truth or ignorance of his -attitude, that a sense of bleak loneliness spread through all his life, -and more and more he turned from men to Nature. - -Moreover, foolish as it must sound, I was sometimes aware that deep down -in him hid some nameless, indefinable quality that proclaimed him fitted -to live in conditions that had never known the restraints of modern -conventions--a very different thing to doing without them once known. A -kind of childlike, transcendental innocence he certainly possessed, -_naif_, most engaging, and--utterly impossible. It showed itself -indirectly, I think, in this distress under modern conditions. The -multifarious apparatus of the spirit of Today oppressed him; its rush and -luxury and artificiality harassed him beyond belief. The terror of cities -ran in his very blood. - -When I describe him as something of an outcast, therefore, it will be -seen that he was such both voluntarily and involuntarily. - -"What the world has gained by brains is simply nothing to what it has -lost by them--" - -"A dream, my dear fellow, a mere dream," I stopped him, yet with -sympathy because I knew he found relief this way. "Your constructive -imagination is too active." - -"By Gad," he replied warmly, "but there is a place somewhere, or a state -of mind--the same thing--where it's more than a dream. And, what's more, -bless your stodgy old heart, some day I'll get there." - -"Not in England, at any rate," I suggested. - -He stared at me a moment, his eyes suddenly charged with dreams. Then, -characteristically, he snorted. He flung his hand out with a gesture that -should push the present further from him. - -"I've always liked the Eastern theory--old theory anyhow if not -Eastern--that intense yearnings end by creating a place where they are -fulfilled--" - -"Subjectively--" - -"Of course; objectively means incompletely. I mean a Heaven built up by -desire and intense longing all your life. Your own thought makes it. -Living idea, that!" - -"Another dream, Terence O'Malley," I laughed, "but beautiful and -seductive." - -To argue bored him. He loved to state his matter, fill it with detail, -blow the heated breath of life into it, and then leave it. Argument -belittled without clarifying; criticism destroyed, sealing up the sources -of life. Any fool could argue; the small, denying minds were always -critics. - -"A dream, but a damned foine one, let me tell you," he exclaimed, -recovering his brogue in his enthusiasm. He glared at me a second, then -burst out laughing. "Tis better to have dhreamed and waked," he added, -"than never to have dhreamed at all." - -And then he poured out O'Shaughnessy's passionate ode to the Dreamers of -the world: - -We are the music-makers, -And we are the dreamers of dreams, -Wandering by lone sea-breakers, -And sitting by desolate streams; -World-losers and world-forsakers, -On whom the pale moon gleams; -Yet we are the movers and shakers -Of the world forever, it seems. - -With wonderful deathless ditties -We build up the world's great cities, -And out of a fabulous story -We fashion an empire's glory; -One man with a dream, at pleasure, -Shall go forth and conquer a crown; -And three with a new song's measure -Can trample an empire down. - -We, in the ages lying -In the buried past of the earth, -Built Nineveh with our sighing, -And Babel itself with our mirth; -And o'erthrew them with prophesying -To the old of the new world's worth; -For each age is a dream that is dying, -Or one that is coming to birth. - -For this passion for some simple old-world innocence and beauty lay in -his soul like a lust--self-feeding and voracious. - - - - -III - -"Lonely! Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?" - ---THOREAU - - -March had passed shouting away, and April was whispering deliciously -among her scented showers when O'Malley went on board the coasting -steamer at Marseilles for the Levant and the Black Sea. The _mistral_ -made the land unbearable, but herds of white horses ran galloping -over the bay beneath a sky of childhood's blue. The ship started -punctually--he came on board as usual with a bare minute's margin--and -from his rapid survey of the thronged upper deck, it seems, he singled -out on the instant this man and boy, wondering first vaguely at their -uncommon air of bulk, secondly at the absence of detail which should -confirm it. They appeared so much bigger than they actually were. The -laughter, rising in his heart, however, did not get as far as his lips. - -For this appearance of massive bulk, and of shoulders comely yet almost -humped, was not borne out by a direct inspection. It was a mental -impression. The man, though broad and well-proportioned, with heavy -back and neck and uncommonly sturdy torso, was in no sense monstrous. -It was upon the corner of the eye that the bulk and hugeness dawned, a -false report that melted under direct vision. O'Malley took him in with -attention merging in respect, searching in vain for the detail of back -and limbs and neck that suggested so curiously the sense of the -gigantic. The boy beside him, obviously son, possessed the same elusive -attributes--felt yet never positively seen. - -Passing down to his cabin, wondering vaguely to what nationality they -might belong, he was immediately behind them, elbowing French and German -tourists, when the father abruptly turned and faced him. Their gaze met. -O'Malley started. - -"Whew...!" ran some silent expression like fire through his brain. - -Out of a massive visage, placid for all its ruggedness, shone eyes -large and timid as those of an animal or child bewildered among so many -people. There was an expression in them not so much cowed or dismayed as -"un-refuged"--the eyes of the hunted creature. That, at least, was the -first thing they betrayed; for the same second the quick-blooded Celt -caught another look: the look of a hunted creature that at last knows -shelter and has found it. The first expression had emerged, then -withdrawn again swiftly like an animal into its hole where safety lay. -Before disappearing, it had flashed a wireless message of warning, of -welcome, of explanation--he knew not what term to use--to another of its -own kind, to _himself_. - -O'Malley, utterly arrested, stood and stared. He would have spoken, for -the invitation seemed obvious enough, but there came an odd catch in his -breath, and words failed altogether. The boy, peering at him sideways, -clung to his great parent's side. For perhaps ten seconds there was this -interchange of staring, intimate staring, between the three of them ... -and then the Irishman, confused, more than a little agitated, ended the -silent introduction with an imperceptible bow and passed on slowly, -knocking absent-mindedly through the crowd, down to his cabin on the -lower deck. - -In his heart, deep down, stirred an indescribable sympathy with something -he divined in these two that was akin to himself, but that as yet he -could not name. On the surface he felt an emotion he knew not whether to -call uneasiness or surprise, but crowding past it, half smothering it, -rose this other more profound emotion. Something enormously winning in -the atmosphere of father and son called to him in the silence: it was -significant, oddly buried; not yet had it emerged enough to be confessed -and labeled. But each had recognized it in the other. Each knew. Each -waited. And it was extraordinarily disturbing. - -Before unpacking, he sat for a long time on his berth, thinking....trying -in vain to catch through a thunder of surprising emotions the word that -might bring explanation. That strange impression of giant bulk, -unsupported by actual measurements; that look of startled security -seeking shelter; that other look of being sure, of knowing where to go -and being actually _en route_,--all these, he felt, grew from the same -hidden cause whereof they were symptoms. It was this hidden thing in the -man that had reached out invisibly and fired his own consciousness as -their gaze met in that brief instant. And it had disturbed him so -profoundly because the very same lost thing lay buried in himself. The -man knew, whereas he anticipated merely--as yet. What was it? Why came -there with it both happiness and fear? - -The word that kept chasing itself in a circle like a kitten after its own -tail, yet bringing no explanation, was Loneliness--a loneliness that must -be whispered. For it was loneliness on the verge of finding relief. And -if proclaimed too loud, there might come those who would interfere and -prevent relief. The man, and the boy too for that matter, were escaping. -They had found the way back, were ready and eager, moreover, to show it -to other prisoners. - -And this was as near as O'Malley could come to explanation. He began to -understand dimly--and with an extraordinary excitement of happiness. - -"Well--and the bigness?" I asked, seizing on a practical point after -listening to his dreaming, "what do you make of that? It must have had -some definite cause surely?" - -He turned and fixed his light blue eyes on mine as we paced beside the -Serpentine that summer afternoon when I first heard the story told. -He was half grave, half laughing. - -"The size, the bulk, the bigness," he replied, "must have been in -reality the expression of some mental quality that reached me -psychically, producing its effect directly on my mind and not upon the -eyes at all." In telling the story he used a simile omitted in the -writing of it, because his sense of humor perceived that no possible turn -of phrase could save it from grotesqueness when actually it was far from -grotesque--extraordinarily pathetic rather: "As though," he said, "the -great back and shoulders carried beneath the loose black cape--humps, -projections at least; but projections not ugly in themselves, comely even -in some perfectly natural way, that lent to his person this idea of giant -size. His body, though large, was normal so far as its proportions were -concerned. In his spirit, though, there hid another shape. An aspect of -that other shape somehow reached my mind." - -Then, seeing that I found nothing at the moment to reply, he added: - -"As an angry man you may picture to yourself as red, or a jealous -man as green!" He laughed aloud. "D'ye see, now? It was not really a -physical business at all!" - - - - -IV - -"We think with only a small part of the past, but it is with our -entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, -will, and act." - ---HENRI BERGSON - - -The balance of his fellow-passengers were not distinguished. There was a -company of French tourists gong to Naples, and another lot of Germans -bound for Athens, some business folk for Smyrna and Constantinople, and a -sprinkling of Russians going home via Odessa, Batoum, or Novorossisk. - -In his own stateroom, occupying the upper berth, was a little -round-bodied, red-faced Canadian drummer, "traveling" in -harvest-machines. The name of the machine, its price, and the terms of -purchase were his universe; he knew them in several languages; beyond -them, nothing. He was good-natured, conceding anything to save trouble. -"D'ye mind the light for a bit while I read in bed?" asked O'Malley. -"Don't mind anything much," was the cheery reply. "I'm not particular; -I'm easy-going and you needn't bother." He turned over to sleep. "Old -traveler," he added, his voice muffled by sheets and blankets, "and take -things as they come." And the only objection O'Malley found in him was -that he took things as they came to the point of not taking baths at all, -and not even taking all his garments off when he went to bed. - -The Captain, whom he knew from previous voyages, a genial, rough-voiced -sailor from Sassnitz, chided him for so nearly missing the boat--"as -usual." - -"You're too late for a seat at my taple," he said with his laughing -growl; "it's a pidy. You should have led me know py telegram, and I then -kepd your place. Now you find room at the doctor's taple howefer -berhaps...!" - -"Steamer's very crowded this time," O'Malley replied, shrugging his -shoulders; "but you'll let me come up sometimes for a smoke with you -on the bridge?" - -"Of course, of course." - -"Anybody interesting on board?" he asked after a moment's pause. - -The jolly Captain laughed. "'Pout the zame as usual, you know. Nothing to -stop ze ship! Ask ze doctor; he knows zooner than me. But, anyway, the -nice ones, they get zeazick always and dizappear. Going Trebizond this -time?" he added. - -"No; Batoum." - -"Ach! Oil?" - -"Caucasus generally--up in the mountains a bit." - -"God blenty veapons then, I hope. They shoot you for two pfennig up -there!" And he was off with his hearty deep laugh and rather ponderous -briskness toward the bridge. - -Thus O'Malley found himself placed for meals at the right hand of -Dr. Stahl; opposite him, on the doctor's left, a talkative Moscow -fur-merchant who, having come to definite conclusions of his own about -things n general, was persuaded the rest of the world must share them, -and who delivered verbose commonplaces with a kind of pontifical -utterance sometimes amusing, but usually boring; on his right a -gentle-eyed, brown-bearded Armenian priest from the Venice monastery that -had sheltered Byron, a man who ate everything except soup with his knife, -yet with a daintiness that made one marvel, and with hands so graceful -they might almost have replaced the knife without off offence. Beyond the -priest sat the rotund Canadian drummer. He kept silence, watched the -dishes carefully lest anything should escape him, and--ate. Lower down on -the opposite side, one or two nondescripts between, sat the big, blond, -bearded stranger with his son. Diagonally across from himself and the -doctor, they were in full view. - -O'Malley talked to all and sundry whom his voice could reach, being -easily forthcoming to people whom he was not likely to see again. But -he was particularly pleased to find himself next to the ship's doctor, -Dr. Heinrich Stahl, for the man both attracted and antagonized him, and -they had crossed swords pleasantly on more voyages than one. There -was a fundamental contradiction in his character due--O'Malley -divined--to the fact that his experiences did not tally as he wished them -to do with his beliefs, or vice versa. Affecting to believe in nothing, -he occasionally dropped remarks that betrayed a belief in all kinds of -things, unorthodox things. Then, having led the Irishman into confessions -of his own fairy faith, he would abruptly rule the whole subject out of -order with some cynical phrase that closed discussion. In this sarcastic -attitude O'Malley detected a pose assumed for his own protection. "No man -of sense can possibly accept such a thing; it is incredible and foolish." -Yet, the biting way he said the words betrayed him; the very thing his -reason rejected, his soul believed.... - -These vivid impressions the Irishman had of people, one wonders how -accurate they were! In this case, perhaps, he was not far from the -truth. That a man with Dr. Stahl's knowledge and ability could be -content to hide his light under the bushel of a mere _Schiffsarzt_ -required explanation. His own explanation was that he wanted leisure for -thinking and writing. Bald-headed, slovenly, prematurely old, his beard -stained with tobacco and snuff, under-sized, scientific in the -imaginative sense that made him speculative beyond mere formulae, his was -an individuality that inspired a respect one could never quite account -for. He had keen dark eyes that twinkled, sometimes mockingly, sometimes, -if the word may be allowed, bitterly, yet often too with a good-humored -amusement which sympathy with human weaknesses could alone have -caused. A warm heart he certainly had, as more than one forlorn -passenger could testify. - -Conversation at their table was slow at first. It began at the lower end -where the French tourists chattered briskly over the soup, then crept -upwards like a slow fire o'erleaping various individuals who would not -catch. For instance, it passed the harvest-machine man; it passed the -nondescripts; it also passed the big light-haired stranger and his son. - -At the table behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the -Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side -Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found -it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to fragments of -the talk O'Malley found that his own eyes kept wandering down the -table--diagonally across--to the two strangers. Once or twice he -intercepted the doctor's glance traveling in the same direction, and on -these occasions it was on the tip of his tongue to make a remark about -them, or to ask a question. Yet the words did not come. Dr. Stahl, he -felt, knew a similar hesitation. Each, wanting to speak, yet kept -silence, waiting for the other to break the ice. - -"This _mistral_ is tiresome," observed the doctor, as the tide of talk -flowed up to his end and made a remark necessary. "It tries the nerves -of some." He glanced at O'Malley, but it was the fur-merchant who -replied, spreading a be-ringed hand over his plate to feel the warmth. - -"I know it well," he said pompously in a tone of finality; "it lasts -three, six, or nine days. But once across the Golfe de Lyons we shall be -free of it." - -"You think so? Ah, I am glad," ventured the priest with a timid smile -while he adroitly balanced meat and bullet-like green peas upon his -knife-blade. Tone, smile, and gesture were so gentle that the use of -steel in any form seemed incongruous. - -The voice of the fur-merchant came in domineeringly. - -"Of course. I have made this trip so often, I _know_. St. Petersburg to -Paris, a few weeks on the Riviera, then back by Constantinople and the -Crimea. It is nothing. I remember last year--" He pushed a large pearl -pin more deeply into his speckled tie and began a story that proved -chiefly how luxuriously he traveled. His eyes tried to draw the whole -end of the table into his circle, but while the Armenian listened -politely, with smiles and bows, Dr. Stahl turned to the Irishman again. -It Vas the year of Halley's comet and he began talking interestingly -about it. - -"... Three o'clock in the morning--any morning, yes--is the best time," -the doctor concluded, "and I'll have you called. You must see it through -my telescope. End of this week, say, after we leave Catania and turn -eastwards..." - -And at this instant, following a roar of laughter from the Captain's -table, came one of those abrupt pauses that sometimes catch an entire -room at once. All voices hushed. Even the merchant, setting down his -champagne glass, fell silent. One heard only the beating of the steamer's -screw, the rush of water below the port-holes, the soft scuffle of the -stewards' feet. The conclusion of the doctor's inconsiderable sentence -was sharply audible all over the room-- - -"... crossing the Ionian Sea toward the Isles of Greece." - -It rang across the pause, and at the same moment O'Malley caught the eyes -of the big stranger lifted suddenly and fixed upon the speaker's face as -though the words had summoned him. - -They shifted the same instant to his own, then dropped again to his -plate. Again the clatter of conversation drowned the room as before; the -merchant resumed his self-description in terms of gold; the doctor -discussed the gases of the comet's tail. But the swift-blooded Irishman -felt himself caught away strangely and suddenly into another world. -Out of the abyss of the subconscious there rose a gesture prophetic and -immense. The trivial phrase and that intercepted look opened a great -door of wonder in his heart. In a second he grew "absent-minded." Or, -rather, something touched a button and the whole machinery of his -personality shifted round noiselessly and instantaneously, presenting an -immediate new facet to the world. His normal, puny self-consciousness -slipped a moment into the majestic calm of some far larger state that -the stranger also knew. The Universe lies in every human heart, and he -plunged into that archetypal world that stands so close behind all -sensible appearances. He could neither explain nor attempt to explain, -but he sailed away into some giant swimming mood of beauty wherein -steamer, passengers, talk, faded utterly, the stranger and his son -remaining alone real and vital. He had seen; he could never forget. -Chance prepared the setting, but immense powers had rushed in and availed -themselves of it. Something deeply buried had flamed from the stranger's -eyes and beckoned to him. The fire ran from the big man to himself and -was gone. - -"The Isles of Greece--" The words were simple enough, yet it seemed to -O'Malley that the look they summoned to the stranger's eyes ensouled -them, transfiguring them with the significance of vital clues. They -touched the fringe of a mystery, magnificent and remote--some -transcendent psychical drama in the 'life of this man whose "bigness" -and whose "loneliness that must be whispered" were also in their way -other vital clues. Moreover, remembering his first sight of these two -upon the upper deck a few hours before, he understood that his own -spirit, by virtue of its peculiar and primitive yearnings, was involved -in the same mystery and included in the same hidden passion. - -The little incident illustrates admirably O'Malley's idiosyncrasy of -"seeing whole." In a lightning flash his inner sense had associated the -words and the glance, divining that the one had caused the other. That -pause provided the opportunity.... If Imagination, then it was creative -imagination; if true, it was assuredly spiritual insight of a rare -quality. - -He became aware that the twinkling eyes of his neighbor were observing -him keenly. For some moments evidently he had been absent-mindedly -staring down the table. He turned quickly and looked at the doctor -with frankness. This time it was impossible to avoid speech of some -kind. - -"Following those lights that do mislead the morn?" asked Dr. Stahl -slyly. "Your thoughts have been traveling. You've heard none of my last -remarks!" - -Under the clamor of the merchant's voice O'Malley replied in a lowered -tone: - -"I was watching those two half-way down the table opposite. They interest -you as well, I see." It was not a challenge exactly; if the tone was -aggressive, it was merely that he felt the subject was one on which they -would differ, and he scented an approaching discussion. The doctor's -reply, indicating agreement, surprised him a good deal. - -"They do; they interest me greatly." There was no trace of fight in the -voice. "That should cause _you_ no surprise." - -"Me--they simply fascinate," said O'Malley, always easily drawn. "What is -it? What do you see about them that is unusual? Do you, too, see them -'big'?" The doctor did not answer at once, and O'Malley added, "The -father's a tremendous fellow, but it's not that--" - -"Partly, though," said the other, "partly, I think." - -"What else, then?" The fur-merchant, still talking, prevented their -being overheard. "What is it marks them off so from the rest?" - -"Of all people _you_ should see," smiled the doctor quietly. "If a man -of your imagination sees nothing, what shall a poor exact mind like -myself see?" He eyed him keenly a moment. "You really mean that you -detect nothing?" - -"A certain distinction, yes; a certain aloofness from others. Isolated, -they seem in a way; rather a splendid isolation I should call it--" - -And then he stopped abruptly. It was most curious, but he was aware -that unwittingly in this way he had stumbled upon the truth, aware at -the same time that he resented discussing it with his companion--because -it meant at the same time discussing himself or something in himself he -wished to hide. His entire mood shifted again with completeness and -rapidity. He could not help it. It seemed suddenly as though he had been -telling the doctor secrets about himself, secrets moreover he would not -treat sympathetically. The doctor had been "at him," so to speak, -searching the depths of him with a probing acuteness the casual language -had disguised. - -"What are they, do you suppose: Finns, Russians, Norwegians, or what?" -the doctor asked. And the other replied briefly that he guessed they -might be Russians perhaps, South Russians. His tone was different. He -wished to avoid further discussion. At the first opportunity he neatly -changed the conversation. - -It was curious, the way proof came to him. Something in himself, wild as -the desert, something to do with that love of primitive life he discussed -only with the few who were intimately sympathetic toward it, this -something in his soul was so akin to a similar passion in these -strangers that to talk of it was to betray himself as well as them. - -Further, he resented Dr. Stahl's interest in them, because he felt it was -critical and scientific. Not far behind hid the analysis that would lay -them bare, leading to their destruction. A profound instinctive sense of -self-preservation had been stirred within him. - -Already, mysteriously guided by secret affinities, he had ranged himself -on the side of the strangers. - - - - -V - -"Mythology contains the history of the archetypal world. It comprehends -Past, Present, and Future." - ---NOVALIS, _Flower Pollen, Translated by U.C.B. - - -In this way there came between these two the slight barrier of a -forbidden subject that grew because neither destroyed it. O'Malley had -erected it; Dr. Stahl respected it. Neither referred again for a time to -the big Russian and his son. - -In his written account O'Malley, who was certainly no constructive -literary craftsman, left out apparently countless little confirmatory -details. By word of mouth he made me feel at once that this mystery -existed, however; and to weld the two together is a difficult task. There -nevertheless was this something about the Russian and his boy that -excited deep curiosity, accompanied by an aversion on the part of the -other passengers that isolated them; also, there was this competition on -the part of the two friends to solve it, from opposing motives. - -Had either of the strangers fallen seasick, the advantage would have -been easily with Dr. Stahl--professionally, but since they remained well, -and the doctor was in constant demand by the other passengers, it was -the Irishman who won the first move and came to close quarters by making -a personal acquaintance. His strong desire helped matters of course; for -he noticed with indignation that these two, quiet and inoffensive as they -were and with no salient cause of offence, were yet rejected by the main -body of passengers. They seemed to possess a quality that somehow -insulated them from approach, sending them effectually "to Coventry," and -in a small steamer where the travelers settle down into a kind of big -family life, this isolation was unpleasantly noticeable. - -It stood out in numerous little details that only a keen observer closely -watching could have taken into account. Small advances, travelers' -courtesies, and the like that ordinarily should have led to conversation, -in their case led to nothing. The other passengers invariably moved away -after a few moments, politely excusing themselves, as it were, from -further intercourse. And although at first the sight of this stirred in -him an instinct of revolt that was almost anger, he soon felt that the -couple not merely failed to invite, but even emanated some definite -atmosphere that repelled. And each time he witnessed these little scenes, -there grew more strongly in him the original picture he had formed of -them as beings rejected and alone, hunted by humanity as a whole, seeking -escape from loneliness into a place of refuge that they knew of, -definitely at last _en route_. - -Only an imaginative mind, thus concentrated upon them, could have -divined all this; yet to O'Malley it seemed plain as the day. With the -certitude, moreover, came the feeling, ever stronger, that the refuge -they sought would prove to be also the refuge he himself sought, the -difference being that whereas they knew, he still hesitated. - -Yet, in spite of this secret sympathy, imagined or discovered, he found -it no easy matter to approach the big man for speech. For a day and a -half he merely watched; attraction so strong excited caution; he paused, -waiting. His attention, however, was so keen that he seemed always to -know where they were and what they were doing. By instinct he was -aware in what part of the ship they would be found--for the most part -leaning over the rail alone in the bows, staring down at the churned -water together by the screws, pacing the after-deck in the dusk or early -morning when no one was about, or hidden away in some corner of the -upper deck, side by side, gazing at sea and sky. Their method of walking, -too, made it easy to single them out from the rest--a free, swaying -movement of the limbs, a swing of the shoulders, a gait that was -lumbering, almost clumsy, half defiant, yet at the same time graceful, -and curiously rapid. The body moved along swiftly for all its air of -blundering--a motion which was a counterpart of that elusive appearance -of great bulk, and equally difficult of exact determination. An air -went with them of being ridiculously confined by the narrow little decks. - -Thus it was that Genoa had been made and the ship was already half -way on to Naples before the opportunity for closer acquaintance presented -itself. Rather, O'Malley, unable longer to resist, forced it. It -seemed, too, inevitable as sunrise. - -Rain had followed the _mistral_ and the sea was rough. A rich land-taste -came about the ship like the smell of wet oaks when wind sweeps their -leaves after a sousing shower. In the hour before dinner, the decks -slippery with moisture, only one or two wrapped-up passengers in -deck-chairs below the awning, O'Malley, following a sure inner lead, -came out of the stuffy smoking-room into the air. It was already dark -and the drive of mist-like rain somewhat obscured his vision after the -glare. Only for a moment though--for almost the first thing he saw -was the Russian and his boy moving in front of him toward the aft -compasses. Like a single figure, huge and shadowy, they passed into the -darkness beyond with a speed that seemed as usual out of proportion -to their actual stride. They lumbered rapidly away. O'Malley caught that -final swing of the man's great shoulders as they disappeared, and, -leaving the covered deck, he made straight after them. And though neither -gave any sign that they had seen him, he felt that they were aware of his -coming--and even invited him. - -As he drew close a roll of the vessel brought them almost into each -other's arms, and the boy, half hidden beneath his parent's flowing -cloak, looked up at once and smiled. The saloon light fell dimly upon -his face. The Irishman saw that friendly smile of welcome, and lurched -forward with the roll of the deck. They brought up against the bulwarks, -and the big man put out an arm to steady him. They all three laughed -together. At close quarters, as usual again, the impression of bulk had -disappeared. - -And then, at first, utterly unlike real life, they said--nothing. The -boy moved round and stood close to his side so that he found himself -placed between them, all three leaning forward over the rails watching -the phosphorescence of the foam-streaked Mediterranean. - -Dusk lay over the sea; the shores of Italy not near enough to be visible; -the mist, the hour, the loneliness of the deserted decks, and something -else that was nameless, shut them in, these three, in a little world of -their own. A sentence or two rose in O'Malley's mind, but without finding -utterance, for he felt that no spoken words were necessary. He was -accepted without more ado. A deep natural sympathy existed between -them, recognized intuitively from that moment of first mutual inspection -at Marseilles. It was instinctive, almost as with animals. The action -of the boy in coming round to his side, unhindered by the father, was -the symbol of utter confidence and welcome. - -There came, then, one of those splendid and significant moments that -occasionally, for some, burst into life, flooding all barriers, breaking -down as with a flaming light the thousand erections of shadow that close -one in. Something imprisoned in himself swept outwards, rising like a -wave, bringing an expansion of life that "explained." It vanished, of -course, instantly again, but not before he had caught a flying remnant -that lit the broken puzzles of his heart and left things clearer. Before -thought, and therefore words, could overtake, it was gone; but there -remained at least this glimpse. The fire had flashed a light down -subterranean passages of his being and made visible for a passing second -some clue to his buried primitive yearnings. He partly understood. - -Standing there between these two this thing came over him with a -degree of intelligibility scarcely captured by his words. The man's -qualities--his quietness, peace, slowness, silence--betrayed somehow that -his inner life dwelt in a region vast and simple, shaping even his -exterior presentment with its own huge characteristics, a region wherein -the distress of the modern world's vulgar, futile strife could not -exist--more, could never _have_ existed. The Irishman, who had never -realized exactly why the life of Today to him was dreadful, now -understood it in the presence of this simple being with his atmosphere of -stately power. He was like a child, but a child of some pre-existence -utterly primitive and utterly forgotten; of no particular age, but of -some state that antedates all ages; simple in some noble, concentrated -sense that was prodigious, almost terrific. To stand thus beside him was -to stand beside a mighty silent fire, steadily glowing, a fire that fed -all lesser flames, because itself close to the central source of fire. He -felt warmed, lighted, vivified--made whole. The presence of this stranger -took him at a single gulp, as it were, straight into Nature--a Nature -that was alive. The man was part of her. Never before had he stood so -close and intimate. Cities and civilization fled away like transient -dreams, ashamed. The sun and moon and stars moved up and touched him. - -This word of lightning explanation, at least, came to him as he breathed -the other's atmosphere and presence. The region where this man's spirit -fed was at the center, whereas today men were active with a scattered, -superficial cleverness, at the periphery. He even understood that his -giant gait and movements were small outer evidences of this inner fact, -wholly in keeping. That blundering stupidity, half glorious, half -pathetic, with which he moved among his fellows was a physical -expression of this psychic fact that his spirit had never learned the -skilful tricks taught by civilization to lesser men. It was, in a way, -awe-inspiring, for he was now at last driving back full speed for his own -region and--escape. - -O'Malley knew himself caught, swept off his feet, momentarily driving -with him.... - -The singular deep satisfaction of it, standing there with these two in -the first moment, he describes as an entirely new sensation in his -life--an awareness that he was "complete." The boy touched his side and -he let an arm steal round to shelter him. The huge, bearded parent rose -in his massiveness against his other shoulder, hemming him in. For a -second he knew a swift and curious alarm, passing however almost at -once into the thrill of a rare happiness. In that moment, it was not the -passengers or the temper of Today who rejected them; it was they who -rejected the world: because they knew another and superior one--more, -they were in it. - -Then, without turning, the big man spoke, the words in heavy accented -English coming out laboriously and with slow, exceeding difficulty as -though utterance was a supreme effort. - -"You ... come ... with ... us?" It was like stammering almost. Still -more was it like essential inarticulateness struggling into an utterance -foreign to it--unsuited. The voice was a deep and windy bass, merging -with the noise of the sea below. - -"I'm going to the Caucasus," O'Malley replied; "up into the old, old -mountains, to--see things--to look about--to search--" He really wanted -to say much more, but the words lay dead or beyond reach. - -The big man nodded slowly. The boy listened. - -"And yourself--?" asked the Irishman, hardly knowing why he faltered and -trembled. - -The other smiled; a beauty that was beyond all language passed with that -smile across the great face in the dusk. - -"Some of us ... of ours ..." he spoke very slowly, very brokenly, -quarrying out the words with real labor, "... still survive... out -there.... We ... now go back. So very ... few ... remain.... And -you--come with us ..." - - - - -VI - -"In the spiritual Nature-Kingdom, man must everywhere seek his peculiar -territory and climate, his best occupation, his particular neighborhood, -in order to cultivate a Paradise in idea; this is the right system.... -Paradise is scattered over the whole earth, and that is why it has become -so unrecognizable." - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - -"Man began in instinct and will end in instinct. Instinct is genius in -Paradise, before the period of self-abstraction (self-knowledge)." - ---Ibid - - -"Look here, old man," he said to me, "I'll just tell you what it was, -because I know you won't laugh." - -We were lying under the big trees behind the Round Pond when he reached -this point, and his direct speech was so much more graphic than the -written account that I use it. He was in one of his rare moments of -confidence, excited, hat off, his shabby tie escaping from the shabbier -grey waistcoat. One sock lay untidily over his boot, showing bare leg. - -Children's voices floated to us from the waterside as though from very -far away, the nursemaids and perambulators seemed tinged with unreality, -the London towers were clouds, its roar the roar of waves. I saw only the -ship's deck, the grey and misty sea, the uncouth figures of the two who -leaned with him over the bulwarks. - -"Go on," I said encouragingly; "out with it!" - -"It must seem incredible to most men, but, by Gad, I swear to you, it -lifted me off my feet, and I've never known anything like it. The mind -of that great fellow got hold of me, included me. He made the inanimate -world--sea, stars, wind, woods, and mountains--seem all alive. The entire -blessed universe was conscious--and he came straight out of it to get me. -I understood things about myself I've never understood before--and always -funked rather;--especially that feeling of being out of touch with my -kind, of finding no one in the world today who speaks my language -quite--that, and the utter, God-forsaken loneliness it makes me suffer--" - -"You always have been a lonely beggar really," I said, noting the -hesitation that thus on the very threshold checked his enthusiasm, -quenching the fire in those light-blue eyes. "Tell me. I shall understand -right enough--or try to." - -"God bless you," he answered, leaping to the sympathy, "I believe you -will. There's always been this primitive, savage thing in me that keeps -others away--puts them off, and so on. I've tried to smother it a bit -sometimes--" - -"Have you?" I laughed. - -"'Tried to,' I said, because I've always been afraid of its getting out -too much and bustin' my life all to pieces:--something lonely and untamed -and sort of outcast from cities and money and all the thick suffocating -civilization of today; and I've only saved myself by getting off into -wildernesses and free places where I could give it a breathin' chance -without running the risk of being locked up as a crazy man." He laughed -as he said it, but his heart was in the words. "You know all that; -haven't I told you often enough? It's not a morbid egoism, or what their -precious academic books so stupidly call 'degenerate,' for in me it's -damned vital and terrific, and moves always to action. It's made me an -alien and--and--" - -"Something far stronger than the Call of the Wild, isn't it?" - -He fairly snorted. "Sure as we're both alive here sittin' on this sooty -London grass," he cried. "This Call of the Wild they prate about is -just the call a fellow hears to go on 'the bust' when he's had too much -town and's got bored--a call to a little bit of license and excess to -safety-valve him down. What I feel," his voice turned grave and quiet -again, "is quite a different affair. It's the call of real hunger--the -call of food. They want to let off steam, but I want to take in stuff to -prevent--starvation." He whispered the word, putting his lips close to my -face. - -A pause fell between us, which I was the first to break. - -"This is not your century! That's what you really mean," I suggested -patiently. - -"Not my century!" he caught me up, flinging handfuls of faded grass in -the air between us and watching it fall; "why, it's not even my world! -And I loathe, loathe the spirit of today with its cheap-jack inventions, -and smother of sham universal culture, its murderous superfluities and -sordid vulgarity, without enough real sense of beauty left to see that a -daisy is nearer heaven than an airship--" - -"Especially when the airship falls," I laughed. "Steady, steady, old boy; -don't spoil your righteous case by overstatement." - -"Well, well, you know what I mean," he laughed with me, though his face -at once turned earnest again, "and all that, and all that, and all -that.... And so this savagery that has burned in me all these years -unexplained, these Russian strangers made clear. I can't tell you how -because I don't know myself. The father did it--his proximity, his -silence stuffed with sympathy, his great vital personality unclipped by -contact with these little folk who left him alone. His presence alone -made me long for the earth and Nature. He seemed a living part of it -all. He was magnificent and enormous, but the devil take me if I know -how." - -"He said nothing--that referred to it directly?" - -"Nothing but what I've told you,--blundering awkwardly with those few -modern words. But he had it in him a thousand to my one. He made me feel -I was right and natural, untrue to myself to suppress it and a coward to -fear it. The speech-center in the brain, you know, is anyhow a -comparatively recent thing in evolution. They say that--" - -"It wasn't his century either," I checked him again. - -"No, and he didn't pretend it was, as I've tried to," he cried, sitting -bolt upright beside me. "The fellow was genuine, never dreamed of -compromise. D'ye see what I mean? Only somehow he'd found out where his -world and century were, and was off to take possession. And that's what -caught me. I felt it by some instinct in me stronger than all else; only -we couldn't talk about it definitely because--because--I hardly know how -to put it--for the same reason," he added suddenly, "that I can't talk -about it to you _now!_ There are no words.... What we both sought was a -state that passed away before words came into use, and is therefore -beyond intelligible description. No one spoke to them on the ship for -the same reason, I felt sure, that no one spoke to them in the whole -world--because no one could manage even the alphabet of their language. - -"And this was so strange and beautiful," he went on, "that standing -there beside him, in his splendid atmosphere, the currents of wind and -sea reached _me through him first_, filtered by his spirit so that I -assimilated them and they fed me, because he somehow stood in such close -and direct relation to Nature. I slipped into my own region, made happy -and alive, knowing at last what I wanted, though still unable to phrase -it. This modern world I've so long tried to adjust myself to became a -thing of pale remembrance and a dream...." - -"All in your mind and imagination, of course, this," I ventured, -seeing that his poetry was luring him beyond where I could follow. - -"Of course," he answered without impatience, grown suddenly thoughtful, -less excited again, "and that's why it was true. No chance of clumsy -senses deceiving one. It was direct vision. What is Reality, in the last -resort," he asked, "but the thing a man's vision brings to him--to -believe? There's no other criterion. The criticism of opposite types -of mind is merely a confession of their own limitations." - -Being myself of the "opposite type of mind," I naturally did not argue, -but suffered myself to accept his half-truth for the whole--temporarily. -I checked him from time to time merely lest he should go too fast for me -to follow what seemed a very wonderful tale of faerie. - -"So this wild thing in me the world today has beggared and denied," he -went on, swept by his Celtic enthusiasm, "woke in its full strength. -Calling to me like some flying spirit in a storm, it claimed me. The -man's being summoned me back to the earth and Nature, as it were, -automatically. I understood that look on his face, that sign in his eyes. -The 'Isles of Greece' furnished some faint clue, but as yet I knew no -more--only that he and I were in the same region and that I meant to -go with him and that he accepted me with delight that was joy. It drew -me as empty space draws a giddy man to the precipice's edge. Thoughts -from another's mind," he added by way of explanation, turning round, -"come far more completely to me when I stand in a man's atmosphere, -silent and receptive, than when by speech he tries to place them there. -Ah! And that helps me to get at what I mean, perhaps. The man, you -see, hardly thought; he _felt_." - -"As an animal, you mean? Instinctively--?" - -"In a sense, yes," he replied after a momentary hesitation. "Like some -very early, very primitive form of life." - -"With the best will in the world, Terence, I don't quite follow you--" - -"I don't quite follow myself," he cried, "because I'm trying to lead -and follow at the same time. You know that idea--I came across it -somewhere--that in ancient peoples the senses were much less specialized -than they are now; that perception came to them in general, massive -sensations rather than divided up neatly into five channels:--that they -felt all over so to speak, and that all the senses, as in an overdose of -hashish, become one single sense? The centralizing of perception in the -brain is a recent thing, and it might equally well have occurred in any -other nervous headquarters of the body, say, the solar plexus; or, -perhaps, never have been localized at all! In hysteria patients have been -known to read with the finger-tips and smell with the heel. Touch is -still all over; it's only the other four that have got fixed in definite -organs. There are systems of thought today that still would make the -solar plexus the main center, and not the brain. The word 'brain,' you -know, never once occurs in the ancient Scriptures of the world. You will -not find it in the Bible--the reins, the heart, and so forth were what -men felt with then. They felt all over--well," he concluded abruptly, "I -think this fellow was like that. D'ye see now?" - -I stared at him, greatly wondering. A nursemaid passed close, balancing a -child in a spring-perambulator, saying in a foolish voice, "Wupsey up, -wupsey down! Wupsey there!" O'Malley, in the full stream of his mood, -waited impatiently till she had gone by. Then, rolling over on his side, -he came closer, talking in a lowered tone. I think I never saw him so -deeply stirred, nor understood, perhaps, so little of the extreme -passion working in him. Yet it was incredible that he could have caught -so much from mere interviews with a semi-articulate stranger, unless -what he said was strictly true, and this Russian had positively touched -latent fires in his soul by a kind of sympathetic magic. - -"You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for -himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, -and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a -person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him. Well--I'd found mine, -that's all. I can't prove it to you with a pair of scales or a butcher's -meat-axe, but it's true." - -"And you mean his mere presence conveyed all this without speech almost?" - -"Because there _was_ no speech possible," he replied, dropping his voice -to a whisper and thrusting his face yet closer into mine. "We were -solitary survivors of a world whose language was either uncreated or"--he -italicized the word--"_forgotten_...." - -"An elaborate and detailed thought-transference, then?" - -"Why not?" he murmured. "It's one of the commonest facts of daily life." - -"And you had never fully realized it before, this loneliness and its -possible explanation--that there might exist, I mean, a way of satisfying -it--till you met this stranger?" - -He answered with deep earnestness. "Always, old man, always, but suffered -under it atrociously because I'd never understood it. I had been afraid -to face it. This man, a far bigger and less diluted example of it than -myself, made it all clear and right and natural. We belonged to the same -forgotten place and time. Under his lead and guidance I could find my -own--return...." - -I whistled a long soft whistle, looking up into the sky. Then, sitting -upright like himself, we stared hard at one another, straight in the eye. -He was too grave, too serious to trifle with. It would have been unfair -too. Besides, I loved to hear him. The way he reared such fabulous -superstructures upon slight incidents, interpreting thus his complex -being to himself, was uncommonly interesting. It was observing the -creative imagination actually at work, and the process in a sense seemed -sacred. Only the truth and actuality with which he clothed it all made -me a little uncomfortable sometimes. - -"I'll put it to you quite simply," he cried suddenly. - -"Yes, and 'quite simply' it was--?" - -"That he knew the awful spiritual loneliness of living in a world whose -tastes and interests were not his own, a world to which he was -essentially foreign, and at whose hands he suffered continual rebuff and -rejection. Advances from either side were mutually and necessarily -repelled because oil and water cannot mix. Rejected, moreover, not -merely by a family, tribe, or nation, but by a race and time--by the -whole World of Today; an outcast and an alien, a desolate survival." - -"An appalling picture!" - -"I understood it," he went on, holding up both hands by way of emphasis, -"because in miniature I had suffered the same: he was a supreme case of -what lay so deeply in myself. He was a survival of other life the modern -mind has long since agreed to exile and deny. Humanity stared at him over -a barrier, never dreaming of asking him in. Even had it done so he could -not by the law of his being have accepted. Outcast myself in some small -way, I understood his terrible loneliness, a soul without a country, -visible and external country that is. A passion of tenderness and -sympathy for him, and so also for myself, awoke. I saw him as chieftain -of all the lonely, exiled souls of life." - -Breathless a moment, he lay on his back staring at the summer -clouds--those thoughts of wind that change and pass before their meanings -can be quite seized. Similarly protean was the thought his phrases tried -to clothe. The terror, pathos, sadness of this big idea he strove to -express touched me deeply, yet never quite with the clarity of his own -conviction. - -"There _are_ such souls, _depaysees_ and in exile," he said suddenly -again, turning over on the grass. "They _do_ exist. They walk the earth -today here and there in the bodies of ordinary men ... and their -loneliness is a loneliness that must be whispered." - -"You formed any idea what kind of--of survival?" I asked gently, for -the notion grew in me that after all these two would prove to be mere -revolutionaries in escape, political refugees, or something quite -ordinary. - -O'Malley buried his face in his hands for a moment without replying. -Presently he looked up. I remember that a streak of London black ran -from the corner of his mouth across the cheek. He pushed the hair back -from his forehead, answering in a manner grown abruptly calm and -dispassionate. - -"Don't ye see what a foolish question that is," he said quietly, "and -how impossible to satisfy, inviting that leap of invention which can be -only an imaginative lie...? I can only tell you," and the breeze brought -to us the voices of children from the Round Pond where they sailed -their ships of equally wonderful adventure, "that my own longing -became this: to go with him, to know what he knew, to live where he -lived--forever." - -"And the alarm you said you felt?" - -He hesitated. - -"That," he added, "was a kind of mistake. To go involved, I felt, an -inner catastrophe that might be Death--that it would be out of the body, -I mean, or a going backwards. In reality, it was a going forwards and a -way to Life." - - - - -VII - - -And it was just before the steamer made Naples that the jolly Captain -unwittingly helped matters forward a good deal. For it was his ambition -to include in the safe-conduct of his vessel the happy-conduct also of -his passengers. He liked to see them contented and of one accord, a big -family, and he noted--or had word brought to him perhaps--that there were -one or two whom the attitude of the majority left out in the cold. - -It may have been--O'Malley wondered without actually asking--that -the man who shared the cabin with the strangers made some appeal for -re-arrangement, but in any case Captain Burgenfelder approached the -Irishman that afternoon on the bridge and asked if he would object -to having them in his stateroom for the balance of the voyage. - -"Your present gompanion geds off at Naples," he said. "Berhaps you would -not object. I think--they seem lonely. You are friendly with them. They -go alzo to Batoum?" - -This proposal for close quarters gave him pause. He knew a moment or two -of grave hesitation, yet without time to analyze it. Then, driven by a -sudden decision of the heart that knew no revision of reason, he agreed. - -"I had better, perhaps, suggest it to see if they are willing," he said -the next minute, hedging. - -"I already ask him dat." - -"Oh, you have! And he would like it--not object, I mean?" he added, aware -of a subtle sense of half-frightened pleasure. - -"Pleased and flattered on the contrary," was the reply, as he handed him -the glasses to look at Ischia rising blue from the sea. - -O'Malley felt as though his decision was somehow an act of -self-committal, almost grave. It meant that impulsively he accepted a -friendship which concealed in its immense attraction--danger. He had -taken the plunge. - -The rush of it broke over him like a wave, setting free a tumult of very -deep emotion. He raised the glasses automatically to his eyes, but -looking through them he saw not Ischia nor the opening the Captain -explained the ship would make, heading that evening for Sicily. He saw -quite another picture that drew itself up out of himself--was thrown -up, rather, somewhat with violence, as upon a landscape of dream-scenery. -The lens of passionate yearning in himself, ever unsatisfied, focused -it against a background far, far away, in some faint distance that was -neither of space nor time, and might equally have been past as future. -Large figures he saw, shadowy yet splendid, that ran free-moving as -clouds over mighty hills, vital with the abundant strong life of a -younger world.... Yet never quite saw them, never quite overtook them, -for their speed and the manner of their motion bewildered the sight.... - -Moreover, though they evaded him in terms of physical definition he knew -a sense of curious, half-remembered familiarity. Some portion of his -hidden self, uncaught, unharnessed by anything in modern life, rose with -a passionate rush of joy and made after them--something in him untamed as -wind. His mind stood up, as it were, and shouted "I am coming." For he -saw himself not far behind, as a man, racing with great leaps to join -them ... yet never overtaking, never drawing close enough to see quite -clearly. The roar of their tramping shook the very blood in his ears.... - -His decision to accept the strangers had set free in his being something -that thus for the first time in his life--escaped.... Symbolically -in his mind this Escape had taken picture form.... - -The Captain's voice was asking for the glasses; with a wrench that -caused almost actual physical pain he tore himself away, letting this -herd of Flying Thoughts sink back into the shadows and disappear. With -sharp regret he saw them go--a regret for long, long, far-off things.... - -Turning, he placed the field-glasses carefully in that fat open hand -stretched out to receive them, and noted as he did so the thick, pink -fingers that closed about the strap, the heavy ring of gold, the band of -gilt about the sleeve. That wrought gold, those fleshy fingers, the -genial gutteral voice saying "T'anks" were symbols of an existence tamed -and artificial that caged him in again.... - -Then he went below and found that the lazy "drummer" who talked -harvest-machines to puzzled peasants had landed, and in his place an -assortment of indiscriminate clothing belonging to the big Russian and -his son lay scattered over the upper berth and upon the sofa-bed beneath -the port-hole. - - - - -VIII - -"For my own part I find in some of these abnormal or supernormal facts -the strongest suggestions in favor of a superior consciousness being -possible. I doubt whether we shall ever understand some of them without -using the very letter of Fechner's conception of a great reservoir in -which the memories of earth's inhabitants are pooled and preserved, and -from which, when the threshold lowers or the valve opens, information -ordinarily shut out leaks into the mind of exceptional individuals among -us." - ---WILLIAM JAMES, _A Pluralistic Universe_ - - -And it was some hours later, while the ship made for the open sea, that -he told Dr. Stahl casually of the new arrangement and saw the change come -so suddenly across his face. Stahl stood back from the compass-box -whereon they leaned, and putting a hand upon his companion's shoulder, -looked a moment into his eyes. With surprise O'Malley noted that the pose -of cynical disbelief was gone; in its place was sympathy, interest, -kindness. The words he spoke came from his heart. - -"Is that true?" he asked, as though the news disturbed him. - -"Of course. Why not? Is there anything wrong?" He felt uneasy. The -doctor's manner confirmed the sense that he had done a rash thing. -Instantly the barrier between the two crumbled and he lost the first -feeling of resentment that his friends should be analyzed. The men thus -came together in unhindered sincerity. - -"Only," said the doctor thoughtfully, half gravely, "that--I may have -done you a wrong, placed you, that is, in a position of--" he hesitated -an instant,--"of difficulty. It was I who suggested the change." - -O'Malley stared at him. - -"I don't understand you quite." - -"It is this," continued the other, still holding him with his eyes. He -said it deliberately. "I have known you for some time, formed-er--an -opinion of your type of mind and being--a very rare and curious one, -interesting me deeply--" - -"I wasn't aware you'd had me under the microscope," O'Malley laughed, but -restlessly. - -"Though you felt it and resented it--justly, I may say--to the point of -sometimes avoiding me--" - -"As doctor, scientist," put in O'Malley, while the other, ignoring the -interruption, continued in German:-- - -"I always had the secret hope, as 'doctor and scientist,' let us put it -then, that I might one day see you in circumstances that should bring -out certain latent characteristics I thought I divined in you. I wished -to observe you--your psychical being--under the stress of certain -temptations, favorable to these characteristics. Our brief voyages -together, though they have so kindly ripened our acquaintance into -friendship"--he put his hand again on the other's shoulder smiling, -while O'Malley replied with a little nod of agreement--"have, of course, -never provided the opportunity I refer to--" - -"Ah--!" - -"Until now!" the doctor added. "Until now." - -Puzzled and interested the Irishman waited for him to go on, but the -man of science, who was now a ship's doctor, hesitated. He found it -difficult, apparently, to say what was in his thoughts. - -"You refer, of course, though I hardly follow you quite--to our big -friends?" O'Malley helped him. - -The adjective slipped out before he was aware of it. His companion's -expression admitted the accuracy of the remark. "You also see them--big, -then?" he said, quickly taking him up. He was not cross-questioning; -out of keen sympathetic interest he asked it. - -"Sometimes, yes," the Irishman answered, more astonished. "Sometimes -only--" - -"Exactly. Bigger than they really are; as though at times they gave -out--emanated--something that extended their appearance. Is that it?" - -O'Malley, his confidence wholly won, more surprised, too, than he quite -understood, seized Stahl by the arm and drew him toward the rails. They -leaned over, watching the sea. A passenger, pacing the decks before -dinner, passed close behind them. - -"But, doctor," he said in a hushed tone as soon as the steps had died -away, "you are saying things that I thought were half in my imagination -only, not true in the ordinary sense quite--your sense, I mean?" - -For some moments the doctor made no reply. In his eyes a curious -steady gaze replaced the usual twinkle. When at length he spoke it was -evidently following a train of thought of his own, playing round a -subject he seemed half ashamed of and yet desired to state with direct -language. - -"A being akin to yourself," he said in low tones, "only developed, -enormously developed; a Master in your own peculiar region, and a man -whose influence acting upon you at close quarters could not fail to -arouse the latent mind-storms"--he chose the word hesitatingly, as -though seeking for a better he could not find on the moment,--"always -brewing in you just below the horizon." - -He turned and watched his companion's face keenly. O'Malley was too -impressed to feel annoyance. - -"Well--?" he asked, feeling the adventure closing round him with quite a -new sense of reality. "Well?" he repeated louder. "Please go on. I'm not -offended, only uncommonly interested. You leave me in a fog, so far. I -think you owe me more than hints." - -"I do," said the other simply. "About that man is a singular quality -too rare for language to have yet coined its precise description: -something that is essentially"--they had lapsed into German now, and he -used the German word--"_unheimlich_." - -The Irishman started. He recognized this for truth. At the same time -the old resentment stirred a little in him, creeping into his reply. - -"You have studied him closely then--had him, too, under the microscope? -In this short time?" - -This time the answer did not surprise him, however. - -"My friend," he heard, while the other turned from him and gazed out over -the misty sea, "I have not been a ship's doctor--always. I am one now -only because the leisure and quiet give me the opportunity to finish -certain work, recording work. For years I was in the H----"--he mentioned -the German equivalent for the Salpetriere--"years of research and -investigation into the astonishing vagaries of the human mind and -spirit--with certain results, followed later privately, that it is now my -work to record. And among many cases that might well seem--er--beyond -either credence or explanation,"--he hesitated again slightly--"I came -across one, one in a million, let us admit, that an entire section of my -work deals with under the generic term of _Urmenschen_." - -"Primitive men," O'Malley snapped him up, translating. Through his -growing bewilderment ran also a growing uneasiness shot strangely -with delight. Intuitively he divined what was coming. - -"Beings," the doctor corrected him, "not men. The prefix _Ur-_, moreover, -I use in a deeper sense than is usually attached to it as in _Urwald_, -_Urwelt_, and the like. An _Urmensch_ in the world today must suggest a -survival of an almost incredible kind--a kind, too, utterly inadmissible -and inexplicable to the materialist perhaps--" - -"Paganistic?" interrupted the other sharply, joy and fright rising over -him. - -"Older, older by far," was the rejoinder, given with a curious hush and a -lowering of the voice. - -The suggestion rushed into full possession of O'Malley's mind. There rose -in him something that claimed for his companions the sea, the wind, the -stars--tumultuous and terrific. But he said nothing. The conception, -blown into him thus for the first time at full strength, took all his -life into its keeping. No energy was left over for mere words. The -doctor, he was aware, was looking at him, the passion of discovery and -belief in his eyes. His manner kindled. It was the hidden Stahl emerging. - -"... a type, let me put it," he went on in a voice whose very steadiness -thrilled his listener afresh, "that in its strongest development would -experience in the world today the loneliness of a complete and absolute -exile. A return to humanity, you see, of some unexpended power of -mythological values...." - -"Doctor...!" - -The shudder passed through him and away almost as soon as it came. Again -the sea grew splendid, the thunder of the waves held voices calling, and -the foam framed shapes and faces, wildly seductive, though fugitive as -dreams. The words he had heard moved him profoundly. He remembered how -the presence of the stranger had turned the world alive. - -He knew what was coming, too, and gave the lead direct, while yet -half afraid to ask the question. - -"So my friend--this big 'Russian'--?" - -"I have known before, yes, and carefully studied." - - - - -IX - -"Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much -transcending Intelligence and Will as these transcend mechanical -motion?" - ---HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_ - - -The two men left the rail and walked arm in arm along the deserted deck, -speaking in lowered voices. - -"He came first to us, brought by the keeper of an obscure hotel where he -was staying, as a case of lapse of memory--loss of memory, I should say, -for it was complete. He was unable to say who he was, whence he came, or -to whom he belonged. Of his land or people we could learn nothing. His -antecedents were an utter blank. Speech he had practically none of his -own--nothing but the merest smattering of many tongues, a word here, a -word there. Utterance, indeed, of any kind was exceedingly difficult to -him. For years, evidently, he had wandered over the world, companionless -among men, seeking his own, finding no place where to lay his head. -People, it seemed, both men and women, kept him at arm's-length, feeling -afraid; the keeper of the little hotel was clearly terrified. This -quality he had that I mentioned just now, repelled human beings--even in -the Hospital it was noticeable--and placed him in the midst of humanity -thus absolutely alone. It is a quality more rare than"--hesitating, -searching for a word--"purity, one almost extinct today, one that I have -never before or since come across in any other being--hardly ever, that -is to say," he qualified the sentence, glancing significantly at his -companion. - -"And the boy?" O'Malley asked quickly, anxious to avoid any discussion -of himself. - -"There was no boy then. He has found him since. He may find others -too--possibly!" The Irishman drew his arm out, edging away imperceptibly. -That shiver of joy reached him from the air and sea, perhaps. - -"And two years ago," continued Dr. Stahl, as if nothing had happened, -"he was discharged, harmless"--he lingered a moment on the word, "if not -cured. He was to report to us every six months. He has never done so." - -"You think he remembers you?" - -"No. It is quite clear that he has lapsed back completely again into -the--er--state whence he came to us, that unknown world where he -passed his youth with others of his kind, but of which he has been able -to reveal no single detail to us, nor we to trace the slightest clue." - -They stopped beneath the covered portion of the deck, for the mist -had now turned to rain. They leaned against the smoking-room outer -wall. In O'Malley's mind the thoughts and feelings plunged and reared. -Only with difficulty did he control himself. - -"And this man, you think," he asked with outward calmness, "is of--of -my kind?" - -"'Akin,' I said. I suggest--" But O'Malley cut him short. - -"So that you engineered our sharing a cabin with a view to putting -him again--putting us both--under the microscope?" - -"My scientific interest was very strong," Dr. Stahl replied carefully. -"But it is not too late to change. I offer you a bed in my own roomy -cabin on the promenade deck. Also, I ask your forgiveness." - -The Irishman, large though his imaginative creed was, felt oddly checked, -baffled, stupefied by what he had heard. He knew perfectly well what -Stahl was driving at, and that revelations of another kind were yet -to follow. What bereft him of very definite speech was this new fact -slowly awakening in his consciousness which hypnotized him, as it were, -with its grandeur. It seemed to portend that his own primitive yearnings, -so-called, grew out of far deeper foundations than he had yet dreamed -of even. Stahl, should he choose to listen, meant to give him -explanation, quasi-scientific explanation. This talk about a survival of -"unexpended mythological values" carried him off his feet. He knew it was -true. Veiled behind that carefully chosen phrase was something more--a -truth brilliantly discovered. He knew, too, that it bit at the -platform-boards upon which his personality, his sanity, his very life, -perhaps, rested--his modern life. - -"I forgive you, Dr. Stahl," he heard himself saying with a deceptive -calmness of voice as they stood shoulder to shoulder in that dark corner, -"for there is really nothing to forgive. The characteristics of these -_Urmenschen_ you describe attract me very greatly. Your words merely give -my imagination a letter of introduction to my reason. They burrow -among the foundations of my life and being. At least--you have done -me no wrong...." He knew the words were wild, impulsive, yet he could -find no better. Above all things he wished to conceal his rising, grand -delight. - -"I thank you," Stahl said simply, yet with a certain confusion. "I--felt -I owed you this explanation--er--this confession." - -"You wished to warn me?" - -"I wished to say 'Be careful' rather. I say it now--Be careful! I give -you this invitation to share my cabin for the remainder of the voyage, -and I urge you to accept it." The offer was from the heart, while the -scientific interest in the man obviously half hoped for a refusal. - -"You think harm might come to me?" - -"Not physically. The man is gentle and safe in every way." - -"But there _is_ danger--in your opinion?" insisted the other. - -"There _is_ danger--" - -"That his influence may make me as himself--an _Urmensch_?" - -"That he may--get you," was the curious answer, given steadily after -a moment's pause. - -Again the words thrilled O'Malley to the core of his delighted, -half-frightened soul. "You really mean that?" he asked again; "as 'doctor -and scientist,' you mean it?" - -Stahl replied with a solemn anxiety in eyes and voice. "I mean that you -have in yourself that 'quality' which makes the proximity of this 'being' -dangerous: in a word that he may take you--er--with him." - -"Conversion?" - -"Appropriation." - -They moved further up the deck together for some minutes in silence, but -the Irishman's feelings, irritated by the man's prolonged evasion, -reached a degree of impatience that was almost anger. "Let us be more -definite," he exclaimed at length a trifle hotly. "You mean that I might -go insane?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense," came the answer without a sign of annoyance -or hesitation; "but that something might happen to you--something that -science could not recognize and medical science could not treat--" - -Then O'Malley interrupted him with the vital question that rushed -out before he could consider its wisdom or legitimacy. - -"Then what really is he--this man, this 'being' whom you call a -'survival,' and who makes you fear for my safety. Tell me _exactly_ what -he is?" - -They found themselves just then by the doctor's cabin, and Stahl, -pushing the door open, led him in. Taking the sofa for himself, he -pointed to an armchair opposite. - - - - -X - -"Superstition is outside reason; so is revelation." - ---OLD SAYING - - -And O'Malley understood that he had pressed the doctor to the verge of -confessing some belief that he was ashamed to utter or to hold, something -forced upon him by his out-of-the-way experience of life to which his -scientific training said peremptorily "No." Further, that he watched him -keenly all the time, noting the effect his words produced. - -"He is not a human being at all," he continued with a queer thin whisper -that conveyed a gravity of conviction singularly impressive, "in the -sense in which you and I are accustomed to use the term. His inner being -is not shaped, as his outer body, upon quite--human lines. He is a Cosmic -Being--a direct expression of cosmic life. A little bit, a fragment, of -the Soul of the World, and in that sense a survival--a survival of her -youth." - -The Irishman, as he listened to these utterly unexpected words, felt -something rise within him that threatened to tear him asunder. Whether -it was joy or terror, or compounded strangely of the two, he could not -tell. It seemed as if he stood upon the edge of hearing something--spoken -by a man who was no mere dreamer like himself--that would explain the -world, himself, and all his wildest cravings. He both longed and feared -to hear it. In his hidden and most secret thoughts, those thoughts he -never uttered to another, this deep belief in the Earth as a conscious, -sentient, living Being had persisted in spite of all the forces education -and modern life had turned against it. It seemed in him an undying -instinct, an unmovable conviction, though he hardly dared acknowledge it -even to himself. - -He had always "dreamed" the Earth alive, a mothering organism to -humanity; and himself, _via_ his love of Nature, in some sweet close -relation to her that other men had forgotten or ignored. Now, therefore, -to hear Stahl talk of Cosmic Beings, fragments of the Soul of the World, -and "survivals of her early life" was like hearing a great shout of -command to his soul to come forth and share it in complete -acknowledgment. - -He bit his lips, pinched himself, stared. Then he took the black cigar he -was aware was being handed to him, lit it with fingers that trembled -absurdly, and smoked as hard as though his sanity depended on his -finishing it in a prescribed time. Great clouds rose before his face. But -his soul within him came up with a flaming rush of speed, shouting, -singing.... - -There was enough ash to knock off into the bronze tray beside him before -either said a word. He watched the little operation as closely as though -he were aiming a rifle. The ash, he saw, broke firmly. "This must be a -really good cigar," he thought to himself, for as yet he had not been -conscious of tasting it. The ash-tray, he also saw, was a kind of nymph, -her spread drapery forming the receptacle. "I must get one of those," he -thought. "I wonder what they cost." Then he puffed violently again. The -doctor had risen and was pacing the cabin floor slowly over by the red -curtain that concealed the bunk. O'Malley absent-mindedly watched -him, and as he did so the words he had heard kept on roaring at the -back of his mind. - -And then, while silence still held the room,--swift, too, as a second -although it takes time to write--flashed through him a memory of Fechner, -the German philosopher who held that the Universe was everywhere -consciously alive, and that the Earth was the body of a living Entity, -and that the World-Soul or Cosmic Consciousness is something more than a -picturesque dream of the ancients.... - -The doctor came to anchor again on the sofa opposite. To his great relief -he was the first to break the silence, for O'Malley simply did not know -how or where to begin. - -"We know today--_you_ certainly know for I've read it accurately -described in your books--that the human personality can extend itself -under certain conditions called abnormal. It can project portions of -itself, show itself even at a distance, operate away from the central -covering body. In exactly similar fashion may the Being of the Earth -have projected portions of herself in the past. Of such great powers or -beings there may be conceivably a survival ... a survival of a hugely -remote period when her Consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in -shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing -humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a -flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all -sorts and kinds...." - -And then, suddenly, as though he had been deliberately giving his -imagination rein yet now regretted it, his voice altered, his manner -assumed a shade of something colder. He shifted the key, as though to -another aspect of his belief. The man was talking swiftly of his -experiences in the big and private hospitals. He was describing _the_ -very belief to which he had first found himself driven--the belief that -had opened the door to so much more. So far as O'Malley could follow it -in his curiously excited condition of mind, it was little more or less -than a belief he himself had often played lovingly with--the theory that -a man has a fluid or etheric counterpart of himself which is obedient to -strong desire and can, under certain conditions, be detached--projected -in a shape dictated by that desire. - -He only realized this fully later perhaps, for the doctor used a -phraseology of his own. Stahl was telling calmly how he had been driven -to some such belief by the facts that had come under his notice both -in the asylums and in his private practice. - -"...That in the amazingly complex personality of a human being," he went -on, "there does exist some vital constituent, a part of consciousness, -that can leave the body for a short time without involving death; that it -is something occasionally visible to others; something malleable by -thought and desire--especially by intense and prolonged yearning; and -that it can even bring relief to its owner by satisfying in some -subjective fashion the very yearnings that drew it forth." - -"Doctor! You mean the 'astral'?" - -"There is no name I know of. I can give it none. I mean in other words -that it can create the conditions for such satisfaction--dream-like, -perhaps, yet intense and seemingly very real at the time. Great emotion, -for instance, drives it forth, explaining thus appearances at a distance, -and a hundred other phenomena that my investigations of abnormal -personality have forced me to recognize as true. And nostalgia often is -the means of egress, the channel along which all the inner forces and -desires of the heart stream elsewhere toward their fulfillment in some -person, place, or _dream_." - -Stahl was giving himself his head, talking freely of beliefs that rarely -found utterance. Clearly it was a relief to him to do so--to let himself -be carried away. There was, after all, the poet in him side by side with -the observer and analyst, and the fundamental contradiction in his -character stood most interestingly revealed. O'Malley listened, half in a -dream, wondering what this had to do with the Cosmic Life just mentioned. - -"Moreover, the appearance, the aspect of this etheric Double, molded -thus by thought, longing, and desire, corresponds to such thought, -longing, and desire. Its shape, when visible shape is assumed, may be -various--very various. The form might conceivably be _felt_, discerned -clairvoyantly as an emanation rather than actually seen," he continued. - -Then he added, looking closely at his companion, "and in your own case -this Double--it has always seemed to me--may be peculiarly easy of -detachment from the rest of you." - -"I certainly create my own world and slip into it--to some extent," -murmured the Irishman, absorbingly interested; "--reverie and so forth; -partially, at any rate." - -"'Partially,' yes, in your reveries of waking consciousness," Stahl took -him up, "but in sleep--in the trance consciousness--completely! And -therein lies your danger," he added gravely; "for to pass out completely -in _waking_ consciousness, is the next step--an easy one; and it -constitutes, not so much a disorder of your being, as a readjustment, but -a readjustment difficult of sane control." He paused again. "You pass out -while fully awake--a waking delusion. It is usually labeled--though in my -opinion wrongly so--insanity." - -"I'm not afraid of that," O'Malley laughed, almost nettled. "I can manage -myself all right--have done so far, at any rate." - -It was curious how the roles had shifted. O'Malley it was now who checked -and criticized. - -"I suggest caution," was the reply, made earnestly. "I suggest caution." - -"I should keep your warnings for mediums, clairvoyants, and the like," -said the other tartly. He was half amazed, half alarmed even while he -said it. It was the personal application that annoyed him. "They are -rather apt to go off their heads, I believe." - -Dr. Stahl rose and stood before him as though the words had given -him a cue he wanted. "From that very medium-class," he said, "my most -suggestive 'cases' have come, though not for one moment do I think of -including you with them. Yet these very 'cases' have been due one and -all to the same cause--the singular disorder I have just mentioned." - -They stared at one another a moment in silence. Stahl, whether O'Malley -liked it or no, was impressive. He gazed at the little figure in front of -him, the ragged untidy beard, the light shining on the bald skull, -wondering what was coming next and what all this bewildering confession -of unorthodox belief was leading up to. He longed to hear more about that -hinted Cosmic Life ... and how yearning might lead to its realization. - -"For any phenomena of the seance-room that may be genuine," he heard him -saying, "are produced by this fluid, detachable portion of the -personality, the very thing we have been speaking about. They are -projections of the personality--automatic projections of the -consciousness." - -And then, like a clap of thunder upon his bewildered mind, came this -man's amazing ultimatum, linking together all the points touched upon and -bringing them to a head. He repeated it emphatically. - -"And in similar fashion," concluded the calm, dispassionate voice -beside him, "there have been projections of the Earth's great -consciousness--direct expressions of her cosmic life--Cosmic Beings. And -of these distant and primitive manifestations, it is conceivable that -one or two may still--here and there in places humanity has never -stained--actually survive. This man is one of them." - -He turned on the two electric lights behind him with an admirable air of -finality. The extraordinary talk was at an end. He moved about the cabin, -putting chairs straight and toying with the papers on his desk. -Occasionally he threw a swift and searching glance at his companion, -like a man who wished to note the effect of an attack. - -For, indeed, this was the impression that his listener retained above -all else. This flood of wild, unorthodox, speculative ideas had been -poured upon him helter-skelter with a purpose. And the abruptness of -the climax was cleverly planned to induce impulsive, hot confession. - -But O'Malley found no words. He sat there in his armchair, passing -his fingers through his tumbled hair. His inner turmoil was too much -for speech or questions ... and presently, when the gong for dinner -rang noisily outside the cabin door, he rose abruptly and went out -without a single word. Stahl turned to see him go. He merely nodded -with a little smile. - -But he did not go to his stateroom. He walked the deck alone for a -time, and when he reached the dining room, Stahl, he saw, had already -come and gone. Halfway down the table, diagonally across, the face of -the big Russian looked up occasionally at him and smiled, and every -time he did so the Irishman felt a sense of mingled alarm and wonder -greater than anything he had ever known in his life before. One of the -great doors of life again had opened. The barriers of his heart broke -away. He was no longer caged and manacled within the prison of a puny -individuality. The world that so distressed him faded. The people in it -were dolls. The fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the tourists and the -rest were mere automatic puppets, all made to scale--petty scale, -amazingly dull, all exactly alike--tiny, unreal, half alive. - -The ship, meanwhile, he reflected with a joy that was passion, was -being borne over the blue sea, and this sea lay spread upon the curved -breast of the round and spinning earth. He, too, and the big Russian -lay upon her breast, held close by gravity so-called, caught closer -still, though, by something else besides. And his longings increased with -his understanding. Stahl, wittingly or unwittingly, had given them an -immense push forwards. - - - - -XI - -"In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is -awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual -exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. According to -this, consciousness can be localized in time and space." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -The offer of the cabin, meanwhile, remained open. In the solitude that -O'Malley found necessary that evening he toyed with it, though knowing -that he would never really accept. - -Like a true Celt his imagination took the main body of Stahl's words and -ensouled them with his own vivid temperament. There stirred in him this -nameless and disquieting joy that wrought for itself a Body from material -just beyond his thoughts--that region of enormous experience that ever -fringes the consciousness of imaginative men. He took the picture at its -face value, took it inside with his own thoughts, delighted in it, raised -it, of course, very soon to a still higher scale. If he criticized at all -it was with phrases like "The man's a poet after all! Why, he's got -creative imagination!" To find his own intuitions endorsed, even half -explained, by a mind of opposite type was a new experience. It emphasized -amazingly the reality of that inner world he lived in. - -This explanation of the big Russian's effect upon himself was terrific, -and that a "doctor" should have conceived it, glorious. That some -portion of a man's spirit might assume the shape of his thoughts and -project itself visibly seemed likely enough. Indeed, to him, it seemed -already a "fact," and his temperament did not linger over it. But that -other suggestion fairly savaged him with its strange grandeur. He played -lovingly with it. - -That the Earth was a living being was a conception divine in size as in -simplicity, and that the Gods and mythological figures had been -projections of her consciousness--this thought ran with a magnificent -new thunder about his mind. It was overwhelming, beautiful as Heaven -and as gracious. He saw the ancient shapes of myth and legend still alive -in some gorgeous garden of the primal world, a corner too remote for -humanity to have yet stained it with their trail of uglier life. He -understood in quite a new way, at last, those deep primitive longings -that hitherto had vainly craved their full acknowledgment. It meant that -he lay so close to the Earth that he felt her pulses as his own. The idea -stormed his belief. - -It was the Soul of the Earth herself that all these years had been -calling to him. - -And while he let his imagination play with the soaring beauty of the -idea, he remembered certain odd little facts. He marshaled them before -him in a row and questioned them: The picture he had seen with the -Captain's glasses--those speeding shapes of beauty; the new aspect of -a living Nature that the Russian's presence stirred in him; the man's -broken words as they had leaned above the sea in the dusk; the curious -passion that leaped to his eyes when certain chance words had touched -him at the dinner-table. And, lastly, the singular impression of giant -bulk he produced sometimes upon the mind, almost as though a portion of -him--this detachable portion molded by the quality of his spirit as he -felt himself to be--emerged visibly to cause it. - -Vaguely, in this way, O'Malley divined how inevitable was the apparent -isolation of these two, and why others instinctively avoided them. They -seemed by themselves in an enclosure where the parent lumberingly, and -the boy defiantly, disported themselves with a kind of lonely majesty -that forbade approach. - -And it was later that same night, as the steamer approached the Lipari -Islands, that the drive forward he had received from the doctor's words -was increased by a succession of singular occurrences. At the same time, -Stahl's deliberate and as he deemed it unjustifiable interference, helped -him to make up his mind decisively on certain other points. - -The first "occurrence" was of the same order as the "bigness"-- -extraordinarily difficult, that is, to confirm by actual measurement. - -It was ten o'clock, Stahl still apparently in his cabin by himself, and -most of the passengers below at an impromptu concert, when the Irishman, -coming down from his long solitude, caught sight of the Russian and his -boy moving about the dark after-deck with a speed and vigor that -instantly arrested his attention. The suggestion of size, and of rapidity -of movement, had never been more marked. It was as though a cloud of the -summer darkness moved beside them. - -Then, going cautiously nearer, he saw that they were neither walking -quickly, nor running, as he had first supposed, but--to his -amazement--were standing side by side upon the deck--stock still. The -appearance of motion, however, was not entirely a delusion, for he next -saw that, while standing there steady as the mast and life-boats behind -them, something emanated shadow-like from both their persons and seemed -to hover and play about them--something that was only approximately -of their own outer shapes, and very considerably larger. Now it veiled -them, now left them clear. He thought of smoke-clouds moving to and -fro about dark statues. - -So far as he could focus his sight upon them, these "shadows," without -any light to cast them, moved in distorted guise there on the deck with a -motion that was somehow rhythmical--a great movement as of dance or -gambol. - -As with the appearance of "bigness," he perceived it first out of the -corner of his eye. When he looked again he saw only two dark figures, -motionless. - -He experienced the sensation a man sometimes knows on entering a deserted -chamber in the nighttime, and is aware that the things in it have just -that instant--stopped. His arrival puts abrupt end to some busy activity -they were engaged in, which begins again the moment he goes. Chairs, -tables, cupboards, the very spots and patterns of the wall have just -flown back to their usual places whence they watch impatiently for his -departure--with the candle. - -This time, on a deck instead of in a room, O'Malley with his candle had -surprised them in the act: people, moreover, not furniture. And this -shadowy gambol, this silent Dance of the Emanations, immense yet -graceful, made him think of Winds flying, visible and uncloaked, -somewhere across long hills, or of Clouds passing to a stately, elemental -measure over the blue dancing-halls of an open sky. His imagery was -confused and gigantic, yet very splendid. Again he recalled the pictured -shapes seen with his mind's eye through the Captain's glasses. And as -he watched, he felt in himself what he called "the wild, tearing instinct -to run and join them," more even--that by rights he ought to have -been there from the beginning--dancing with them--indulging a natural and -instinctive and rhythmical movement that he had somehow forgotten. - -The passion in him was very strong, very urgent, it seems, for he took -a step forward, a call of some kind rose in his throat, and in another -second he would have been similarly cavorting upon the deck, when he -felt his arm clutched suddenly with vigor from behind. Some one seized -him and held him back. A German voice spoke with a guttural whisper -in his ear. - -Dr. Stahl, crouching and visibly excited, drew him forward a little. -"Hold up!" he heard whispered--for their India rubber soles slithered -on the wet decks. "We shall see from here, eh? See something at last?" -He still whispered. O'Malley's sudden anger died down. He could not -give vent to it without making noise, for one thing, and above all else -he wished to--see. He merely felt a vague wonder how long Stahl had -been watching. - -They crouched behind the lee of a boat. The outline of the ship rose, -distinctly visible against the starry sky, masts, spars, and cordage. A -faint gleam came through the glass below the compass-box. The wheel and -the heaps of coiled rope beyond rose and fell with the motion of the -vessel, now against the stars, now black against the phosphorescent foam -that trailed along the sea like shining lace. But the human figures, he -next saw, were now doing nothing, not even pacing the deck; they were -no longer of unusual size either. Quietly leaning over the rail, father -and son side by side, they were guiltless of anything more uncommon -than gazing into the sea. Like the furniture, they had just--stopped! - -Dr. Stahl and his companion waited motionless for several minutes in -silence. There was no sound but the dull thunder of the screws, and -a faint windy whistle the ship's speed made in the rigging. The -passengers were all below. Then, suddenly, a burst of music came up as -some one opened a saloon port-hole and as quickly closed it again--a -tenor voice singing to the piano some trivial modern song with a trashy -sentimental lilt. It was--in this setting of sea and sky--painful; -O'Malley caught himself thinking of a barrel-organ in a Greek temple. - -The same instant father and son, as though startled, moved slowly away -down the deck into the further darkness, and Dr. Stahl tightened his grip -of the Irishman's arm with a force that almost made him cry out. A gleam -of light from the opened port-hole had fallen about them before they -moved. Quite clearly it revealed them bending busily over, heads close -together, necks and shoulders thrust forward and down a little. - -"Look, by God!" whispered Stahl hoarsely as they moved off. "There's -a third!" - -He pointed. Where the two had been standing something, indeed, still -remained. Concealed hitherto by their bulk, this other figure had been -left. They saw its large, dim outline. It moved. Apparently it began -to climb over the rails, or to move in some way just outside them, -hanging half above the sea. There was a free, swaying movement about -it, not ungainly so much as big--very big. - -"Now, quick!" whispered the doctor excited, in English; "this time I find -out, sure!" - -He made a violent movement forward, a pocket electric lamp in his hand, -then turned angrily, furiously, to find that O'Malley held him fast. -There was a most unseemly struggle--for a minute, and it was caused by -the younger man's sudden passionate instinct to protect his own from -discovery, if not from actual capture and destruction. - -Stahl fought in vain, being easily overmatched; he swore vehement German -oaths under his breath; and the pocket-lamp, of course unlighted, fell -and rattled over the deck, sliding with the gentle roll of the steamer to -leeward. But O'Malley's eyes, even while he struggled, never for one -instant left the spot where the figure and the "movement" had been; and -it seemed to him that when the bulwarks dipped against the dark of the -sea, the moving thing completed its efforts and passed into the waves -with a swift leap. When the vessel righted herself again the outline of -the rail was clear. - -Dr. Stahl, he then saw, had picked up the lamp and was bending over -some mark upon the deck, examining a wide splash of wet upon which -he directed the electric flash. The sense of revived antagonism between -the men for the moment was strong, too strong for speech. O'Malley -feeling half ashamed, yet realized that his action had been instinctive, -and that another time he would do just the same. He would fight to the -death any too close inspection, since such inspection included also -now--himself. - -The doctor presently looked up. His eyes shone keenly in the gleam -of the lamp, but he was no longer agitated. - -"There is too much water," he said calmly, as though diagnosing a case; -"too much to permit of definite traces." He glanced round, flashing the -beam about the decks. The other two had disappeared. They were alone. "It -was outside the rail all the time, you see," he added, "and never quite -reached the decks." He stooped down and examined the splash once more. It -looked as though a wave had topped the scuppers and left a running line -of foam and water. "Nothing to indicate its exact nature," he said in a -whisper that conveyed something between uneasiness and awe, again turning -the light sharply in every direction and peering about him. "It came to -them--er--from the sea, though; it came from the sea right enough. That, -at least, is positive." And in his manner was perhaps just a touch to -indicate relief. - -"And it returned into the sea," exclaimed O'Malley triumphantly. It -was as though he related his own escape. - -The two men were now standing upright, facing one another. Dr. Stahl, -betraying no sign of resentment, looked him steadily in the eye. He put -the lamp back into his pocket. When he spoke at length in the darkness, -the words were not precisely what the Irishman had expected. Under them -his own vexation and excitement faded instantly. He felt almost sheepish -when he remembered his violence. - -"I forgive your behavior, of course," Stahl said, "for it is -consistent--splendidly consistent--with my theory of you; and of value, -therefore. I only now urge you again"--he moved closer, speaking almost -solemnly--"to accept the offer of a berth in my cabin. Take it, my -friend, take it--tonight." - -"Because you wish to watch me at close quarters." - -"No," was the reply, and there was sympathy in the voice, "but because -you are in danger--especially in sleep." - -There was a moment's pause before O'Malley said anything. - -"It is kind of you, Dr. Stahl, very kind," he answered slowly, and this -time with grave politeness; "but I am not afraid, and I see no reason to -make the change. And as it's now late," he added somewhat abruptly, -almost as though he feared he might be persuaded to alter his mind, "I -will say good-night and turn in--if you will forgive me--at once." - -Dr. Stahl said no further word. He watched him, the other was aware, as -he moved down the deck toward the saloon staircase, and then turned once -more with his lamp to stoop over the splashed portion of the boards. He -examined the place apparently for a long time. - -But O'Malley, as he went slowly down the hot and stuffy stairs, realized -with a wild and rushing tumult of joy that the "third" he had seen was of -a splendor surpassing the little figures of men, and that something deep -within his own soul was most gloriously akin with it. A link with the -Universe had been subconsciously established, tightened up, adjusted. -From all this living Nature breathing about him in the night, a message -had reached the strangers and himself--a message shaped in beauty and in -power. Nature had become at last aware of his presence close against her -ancient face. Henceforth would every sight of Beauty take him direct to -the place where Beauty comes from. No middleman, no Art was necessary. -The gates were opening. Already he had caught a glimpse. - - - - -XII - -In the stateroom he found, without surprise somehow, that his new -companions had already retired for the night. The curtain of the upper -berth was drawn, and on the sofa-bed below the opened port-hole the -boy already slept. Standing a moment in the little room with these two -close, he felt that he had come into a new existence almost. Deep within -him this sense of new life thrilled and glowed. He was shaking a little -all over, not with the mere tremor of excitement, however, but with the -tide of a vast and rising exultation he could scarce contain. For his -normal self was too small to hold it. It demanded expansion, and the -expansion it claimed had already begun. The boundaries of his personality -were enormously extending. - -In words this change escaped him wholly. He only knew that something -in him of an old unrest lay down at length and slept. Less acute grew -those pangs of starvation his life had ever felt--the ache of that -inappeasable hunger for the beauty and innocence of some primal state -before thick human crowds had stained the world with all their strife -and clamor. The glory of it burned white within him. - -And the way he described it to himself was significant of its true -nature. For it vans the analogy of childhood. The passion of a boy's -longing swept over him. He knew again the feelings of those early days -when-- - -A boy's will is the wind's will, -And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, - ---when all the world smells sweet and golden as a summer's day, and a -village street is endless as the sky.... - -This it was, raised to its highest power, that dropped a hint of -explanation into that queer heart of his wherein had ever burned the -strange desire for primitive existence. It was the Call, though, not of -his own youth alone, but of the youth of the world. A mood of the Earth's -consciousness--some giant expression of her cosmic emotion--caught -him. And it was the big Russian who acted as channel and interpreter. - -Before getting into bed, he drew aside the little red curtain that -screened his companion, and peered cautiously through the narrow slit. -The big occupant of the bunk also slept, his mane-like hair spread about -him over the pillow, and on his great, placid face a look of peace that -seemed to deepen with every day the steamer neared her destination. -O'Malley gazed for a full minute and more. Then the sleeper felt the -gaze, for suddenly the eyelids quivered, moved, and lifted. The large -brown eyes peered straight into his own. The Irishman, unable to turn -away in time, stood fixed and staring in return. The gentleness and power -of the look passed straight down into his heart, filled him to the brim -with things their owner knew, and confirmed that appeasement of his -own hunger, already begun. - -"I tried--to prevent the--interference," he stammered in a low voice. -"I held him back. You saw me?" - -A huge hand stretched forth from the bunk to stop him. Impulsively he -seized it with both his own. At the first contact he started--a little -frightened. It felt so wonderful, so mighty. Thus might a gust of wind -or a billow of the sea have thrust against him. - -"A messenger--came," said the man with that laborious slow utterance, and -deep as thunder, "from--the--sea." - -"From--the--sea, yes," repeated O'Malley beneath his breath, yet -conscious rather that he wanted to shout and sing it. He saw the big -man smile. His own small hands were crushed in the grasp of power. -"I--understand," he added in a whisper. He found himself speaking with -a similar clogged utterance. Somehow, it seemed, the language they -ought to have used was either forgotten or unborn. Yet whereas his friend -was inarticulate perhaps, he himself was--dumb. These little modern -words were all wrong and inadequate. Modern speech could only deal -with modern smaller things. - -The giant half rose in his bed, as though at first to leap forward and -away from it. He tightened an instant the grasp upon his companion's -hands, then suddenly released them and pointed across the cabin. That -smile of happiness spread upon his face. O'Malley turned. There the -boy lay, deeply slumbering, the clothes flung back so that the air from -the port-hole played over the bare neck and chest; upon his face, too, -shone the look of peace and rest his father wore, the hunted expression -all gone, as though the spirit had escaped in sleep. The parent pointed, -first to the boy, then to himself, then to this new friend standing -beside his bed. The gesture including the three of them was of singular -authority--invitation, welcome, and command lay in it. More--in some -incomprehensible way it was majestic. O'Malley's thought flashed upon -him the limb of some great oak tree, swaying in the wind. - -Next, placing a finger on his lips, his eyes once more swept O'Malley -and the boy, and he turned again into the little bunk that so difficultly -held him, and lay back. The hair flowed down and mingled with the beard, -over pillow and neck, almost to the shoulders. And something that was -enormous and magnificent lay back with him, carrying with it again that -sudden atmosphere of greater bulk. With a deep sound in his throat that -was certainly no actual word and yet more expressive than any speech, he -turned hugely over among the little, scanty sheets, drew the curtain -again before his face, and returned into the world of--sleep. - - - - -XIII - -"It may happen that the earthly body falls asleep in one direction deeply -enough to allow it in others to awaken far beyond its usual limits, and -yet not so deeply and completely as to awaken no more. Or, to the -subjective vision there comes a flash so unusually vivid as to bring to -the earthly sense an impression rising above the threshold from an -otherwise inaccessible distance. Here begin the wonders of clairvoyance, -of presentiments, and premonitions in dreams;--pure fables, if the future -body and the future life are fables; otherwise signs of the one and -predictions of the other; but what has signs exists, and what has -prophecies will come." - ---FECHNER, _Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ - - -But O'Malley rolled into his own berth below without undressing, sleep -far from his eyes. He had heard the Gates of ivory and horn swing softly -upon their opening hinges, and the glimpse he caught of the garden beyond -made any question of slumber impossible. Again he saw those shapes of -cloud and wind flying over the long hills, while the name that should -describe them ran, hauntingly splendid, along the mysterious passages of -his being, though never coming quite to the surface for capture. - -Perhaps, too, he was glad that the revelation was only partial. The -size of the vision thus invoked awed him a little, so that he lay there -half wondering at the complete surrender he had made to this guidance -of another soul. - -Stahl's warnings ran far away and laughed. The idea even came to him that -Stahl was playing with him: that his portentous words had been carefully -chosen for their heightening effect upon his own imagination so that the -doctor might study an uncommon and extreme "case." The notion passed -through him merely, without lingering. - -In any event it was idle to put the brakes on now. He was internally -committed and must go wherever it might lead. And the thought rejoiced -him. He had climbed upon a pendulum that swung into an immense past; but -its return swing would bring him safely back. It was rushing now into -that nameless place of freedom that the primitive portion of his being -had hitherto sought in vain, and a fundamental, starved craving of his -life would know satisfaction at last. Already life had grown all glorious -without. It was not steel engines but a speeding sense of beauty that -drove the ship over the sea with feet of winged blue darkness. The stars -fled with them across the sky, dropping golden leashes to draw him faster -and faster forwards--yet within--to the dim days when this old world yet -was young. He took his fire of youth and spread it, as it were, all over -life till it covered the entire world, far, far away. Then he stepped -back into it, and the world herself, he found, stepped with him. - -He lay listening to the noises of the ship, the thump and bumble of -the engines, the distant droning of the screws under water. From time -to time stewards moved down the corridor outside, and the footsteps -of some late passenger still paced the decks overhead. He heard voices, -too, and occasionally the clattering of doors. Once or twice he fancied -some one moved stealthily to the cabin door and lingered there, but the -matter never drew him to investigate, for the sound each time resolved -itself naturally into the music of the ship's noises. - -And everything, meanwhile, heard or thought, fed the central concern -upon which his mind was busy. These superficial sounds, for instance, -had nothing to do with the real business of the ship; _that_ lay below -with the buried engines and the invisible screws that worked like demons -to bring her into port. And with himself and his slumbering companions -the case was similar. Their respective power-stations, working in the -subconscious, had urged them toward one another inevitably. How long, he -wondered, had the spirit of that lonely, alien "being" flashed messages -into the void that reached no receiving-station tuned to their -acceptance? Their accumulated power was great, the currents they -generated immense. He knew. For had they not charged full into himself -the instant he came on board, bringing an intimacy that was immediate -and full-fledged? - -The untamed longings that always tore him when he felt the great winds, -moved through forests, or found himself in desolate places, were at last -on the high road to satisfaction--to some "state" where all that they -represented would be explained and fulfilled. And whether such "state" -should prove to be upon the solid surface of the earth, objective; or in -the fluid regions of his inner being, subjective--was of no account -whatever. It would be true. The great figure that filled the berth above -him, now deeply slumbering, had in him subterraneans that gave access -not only to Greece, but far beyond that haunted land, to a state of -existence symbolized in the legends of the early world by Eden and the -Golden Age.... - -"You are in danger," that wise old speculative doctor had whispered, -"and especially in sleep!" But he did not sleep. He lay there thinking, -thinking, thinking, a rising exaltation of desire paving busily the path -along which eventually he might escape. - -As the night advanced and the lesser noises retired, leaving only the -deep sound of the steamer talking to the sea, he became aware, too, that -a change, at first imperceptibly, then swiftly, was stealing over the -cabin. It came with a riot of silent Beauty. At a loss to describe it -with precision, he nevertheless divined that it proceeded from the -sleeping figure overhead and in a lesser pleasure, too, from the boy upon -the sofa opposite. It emanated from these two, he felt, in proportion as -their bodies passed into deeper and deeper slumber, as though what -occurred sometimes upon the decks by an act of direct volition, took -place now automatically and with a fuller measure of release. Their -spirits, free of that other world in sleep, were alert and potently -discharging. Unconsciously, their vital, underlying essence escaped into -activity. - -Growing about his own person, next, it softly folded him in, casing -his inner being with glory and this crowding sense of beauty. This -increased manifestation of psychic activity reached down into the very -core of himself, like invisible fingers playing upon an instrument. -Notes--powers--in his soul, hitherto silent because none had known how -to sound them, rose singing to the surface. For it seemed at length that -forms of some intenser life, busily operating, moved to and fro within -the painted white walls of that little cabin, working subtly to bring -about a transformation of himself. A singular change was fast and -cleverly at work in his own being. It was, he puts it, a silent and -irresistible Evocation. - -No one of his senses was directly affected; certainly he neither saw, -felt, nor heard anything in the usual acceptance of the terms; but any -instant surely, it seemed that all his senses must awake and report to -the mind things that were splendid beyond the common order. In the -crudest aspect of it, he felt as though he extended and grew large--that -he dreaded to see himself in the mirror lest he might witness an external -appearance of bigness which corresponded to this interior expansion. - -For a long time he lay unresisting, letting the currents of this -subjective tempest play through and round him. Entrancing sensations of -beauty and rapture came with it. The outer world seemed remote and -trivial, the passengers unreal--the priest, the voluble merchant, the -jovial Captain, all spun like dead things at the periphery of life; -whereas he was moving toward the Center. Stahl--! the thought of Dr. -Stahl, alone intruded with a certain unwelcome air of hindrance, almost -as though he sought to end it, or call a halt. But Stahl, too, himself -presently spun off like a leaf before the rising wind... - -And then it was that an external sense was tapped, and he did hear -something. From the berth overhead came a faint sound that made his -heart stand still, though not with common fear. He listened intently. -The blood tearing through his ears at first concealed its actual nature. -It was far, far away; then came closer, as a waft of wind brings near and -carries off again a sound of bells in mountains. It fled over vales and -hills, to return a moment after with suddenness--a little louder, a -little nearer. And with it came an increase of this sense of beauty that -stretched his heart, as it were, to some deep ancient scale of joy once -known, but long forgotten... - -Across the cabin, the boy moved uneasily in his sleep. - -"Oh, that I could be with him where he now is!" he cried, "in that -place of eternal youth and eternal companionship!" The cry was -instinctive utterly; his whole being, condensed in the single yearning, -pressed through it--drove behind it. The place, the companionship, the -youth--all, he knew, would prove in some strange way enormous, vast, -ultimately satisfying forever and ever, far out of this little modern -world that imprisoned him... - -Again, most unwelcome and unexplained, the face of Stahl flashed -suddenly before him to hinder and interrupt. He banished it with -an effort, for it brought a smaller comprehension that somehow -involved--fear. - -"Curse the man!" flamed in anger across his world of beauty, and the -violence of the contrast broke something in his mind like a globe of -colored glass that had focused the exquisiteness of the vision.... The -sound continued as before, but its power of evocation lessened. The -thought of Stahl--Stahl in his denying aspect--dimmed it. - -Glancing up at the frosted electric light, O'Malley felt vaguely that -if he turned it out he would somehow yet see better, hear better, -understand more; and it was this practical consideration, introduced -indirectly by the thought of Stahl, that made him realize now for the -first time that he actually and definitely was--afraid. For, to leave his -bunk with its comparative, protective dark, and step into the middle of -a cabin he knew to be alive with a seethe of invisible charging forces, -made him realize that distinct effort was necessary--effort of will. If -he yielded he would be caught up and away, swept from his known moorings, -borne through high space out of himself. And Stahl with his cowardly -warnings and belittlements set fear, thus, in the place of free -acceptance. Otherwise he might even have come to these long blue hills -where danced and raced the giant shapes of cloud, singing while.... - -"Singing!" Ah! There was the clue! The sound he heard was singing--faint, -low singing; close beside him too. It was the big man, singing softly in -his sleep. - -This ordinary explanation of the "wonder-sound" brought him down to -earth, and so to a more normal feeling of security again. He stepped -cautiously from the bed, careful not to let the rings rattle on the rod -of brass, and slowly raised himself upright. And then, through a slit of -the curtain, he--saw. The lips of the big sleeper moved gently, the beard -rising and falling very slightly with them, and this murmur that he had -thought so far away, came out and sang deliriously and faint before his -very face. It most curiously--flowed. Easily, naturally, almost -automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once -understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant -hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the -singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly -over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it -swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In -it, too, there lay some accent of a secret, dim sublimity, deeper far -than any other human sound could touch. The terror of a great freedom -caught him, a freedom most awfully remote from the smaller personal -existence he knew Today ... for it suggested, with awe and wonder, the -kind of primitive utterance that was before speech or the development of -language; when emotions were still too vague and mighty to be caught by -little words, but when beings, close to the heart of their great Mother, -expressed the feelings, enormous and uncomplex, of the greater life they -shared as portions of her--projections of the Earth herself. - -With a crash in his brain, O'Malley stopped. These thoughts, he suddenly -realized, were not his own. An attack of unwonted sensations stung and -scattered his mind with a rush of giant splendor that threatened to -overwhelm him. He was in the very act of being carried away; his sense of -personal identity menaced; surrender well-nigh already complete. - -Another moment, especially if those eyes opened and caught him, and he -would be beyond recall in the region of these other two. The narrow space -of that little cabin was charged already to the brim, filled with some -overpowering loveliness of wild and simple things, the beauty of stars -and winds and flowers, the terror of seas and mountains; strange radiant -forms of gods and heroes, nymphs, fauns and satyrs; the fierce sunshine -of some Golden Age unspoiled, of a stainless region now long forgotten -and denied--that world of splendor his heart had ever craved in vain, and -beside which the life of Today faded to a wretched dream. - -It was the _Urwelt_ calling.... - -With a violent internal effort, he tore his gaze from those eyelids that -fortunately opened not. At the same moment, though he did not hear them, -steps came close in the corridor, and there was a rattling of the knob. -Behind him, a movement from the berth below the port-hole warned him that -he was but just in time. The Vision he was afraid as yet to acknowledge -drew with such awful speed toward the climax. - -Quickly he turned away, lifted the hook of the cabin door, and passed -into the passage, strangely faint. A great commotion followed him out: -father and son both, it seemed, suddenly upon their feet. And at the -same time the sound of "singing" rolled into the body of a great hushed -chorus, as it were of galloping winds that filled big valleys far away -with a gust of splendor, faintly roaring in some incredible distance -where no cities were, nor habitations of men; with a freedom, too, that -was majestic and sublime. Oh! the terrific gait of that life in an open -world!--Golden to the winds!--uncrowded!--The cosmic life--! - -O'Malley shivered as he heard. For an instant, the true grain of his -inner life, picked out in flame and silver, flashed clear. Almost--he -knew himself caught back. - -And there, in the dimly-lighted corridor, against the paneling of the -cabin wall, crouched Dr. Stahl--listening. The pain of the contrast was -vivid beyond words. It seemed as if he had passed from the thunder of -organs to hear the rattling of tin cans. Instantly he understood the -force that all along had held him back: the positive, denying aspect of -this man's mind--afraid. - -"_You!_" he exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are _you_ doing here?" -He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on -tiptoe to his side. He moved hurriedly. - -"Come away," he said vehemently under his breath. "Come with me to my -cabin--to the decks--anywhere away from this--before it's too late." - -And the Irishman then realized that his face was white and that his -voice shook. The hand that gripped him by the arm shook too. - -They went quickly along the deserted corridor and up the stairs, -O'Malley making no resistance, moving in a kind of dream. He has a -fleeting recollection of an odor, sweet and slightly pungent as of -horses, in his nostrils. The wind of the open decks revived him, and he -saw to his amazement that the East was brightening. In that cabin, then, -hours had been compressed into minutes. - -The steamer had already slipped by the Straits of Messina. To the right -he saw the cones of Etna, shadowy in the sky, calling across the dawn to -Stromboli their smoking brother of the Lipari. To the left over the blue -Ionian Sea the lights of a cloudless sunrise rose softly above the world. - -And the hour of enchantment seized and shook him anew. Somewhere, across -those faint blue waves, lay the things that he so passionately sought. It -was the very essence of their loveliness and wonder that had charged down -between the walls of that stuffy cabin below. For every morning still, at -dawn, the tired world knows again the splendors of her youth; and the -Irishman, shuddering a little in his sacred joy, felt that he must burst -his bonds and fly to join the sunrise and the sea. The yearning, he was -aware, had now increased a thousandfold: its fulfillment was merely -delayed. - -He passed along the decks all slippery with dew into Dr. Stahl's cabin, -and flung himself on the broad sofa to sleep. Sleep, too, came at once; -he was profoundly exhausted; and, while he slept, Stahl watched over him, -covering his body with a thick blanket. - - - - -XIV - -"It is a lovely imagination responding to the deepest desires, instincts, -cravings of spiritual man, that spiritual rapture should find an echo in -the material world; that in mental communion with God we should find -sensible communion with nature; and that, when the faithful rejoice -together, bird and beast, hill and forest, should be not felt only, but -seen to rejoice along with them. It is not the truth; between us and our -environment, whatever links there are, this link is wanting. But the -yearning for it, the passion which made Wordsworth cry out for something, -even were it the imagination of a pagan which would make him 'less -forlorn,' is natural to man; and simplicity leaps at the lovely fiction -of a response. Just here is the opportunity for such alliances between -spiritualism and superstition as are the daily despair of seekers -after truth." - ---Dr. VERRALL - - -And though he slept for hours the doctor never once left his side, but -sat there with pencil and notebook, striving to catch, yet in vain, some -accurate record of the strange fragmentary words that fell from his lips -at intervals. His own face was aflame with an interest that amounted to -excitement. The very hand that held the pencil trembled. One would have -said that thus somewhat a man might behave who found himself faced with -confirmation of some vast, speculative theory his mind had played with -hitherto from a distance only. - -Toward noon the Irishman awoke. The steamer, still loading oranges and -sacks of sulfur in the Catania harbor, was dusty and noisy. Most of the -passengers were ashore, hurrying with guidebooks and field-glasses to see -the statue of the dead Bellini or watch the lava flow. A blazing, -suffocating heat lay over the oily sea, and the summit of the volcano, -with its tiny, ever-changing puff of smoke, soared through blue haze. - -To Stahl's remark, "You've slept eight hours," he replied, "But I feel as -though I'd slept eight centuries away." He took the coffee and rolls -provided, and then smoked. The doctor lit a cigar. The red curtains over -the port-holes shut out the fierce sun, leaving the cabin cool and dim. -The shouting of the lightermen and officers mingled with the roar and -scuttle of the donkey-engine. And O'Malley knew perfectly well that while -the other moved about carelessly, playing with books and papers on his -desk, he was all the time keeping him under close observation. - -"Yes," he continued, half to himself, "I feel as if I'd fallen asleep in -one world and awakened into another where life is trivial and -insignificant, where men work like devils for things of no value in order -to accumulate them in great ugly houses; always collecting and -collecting, like mad children, possessions that they never really -possess--things external to themselves, valueless and unreal--" - -Dr. Stahl came up quietly and sat down beside him. He spoke gently, -his manner kind and grave rather. He put a hand upon his shoulder. - -"But, my dear boy," he said, the critical mood all melted away, "do -not let yourself go too completely. That is vicious thinking, believe me. -All details are important--here and now--spiritually important, if you -prefer the term. The symbols change with the ages, that is all." Then, as -the other did not reply, he added: "Keep yourself well in hand. Your -experience is of extraordinary interest--may even be of value, to -yourself as well as to--er--others. And what happened to you last night -is worthy of record--if you can use it without surrendering your soul to -it altogether. Perhaps, later, you will feel able to speak of it--to tell -me in detail a little--?" - -His keen desire to know more evidently fought with his desire to protect, -to heal, possibly even to prevent. - -"If I felt sure that your control were sufficient, I could tell you in -return some results of my own study of--certain cases in the hospitals, -you see, that might throw light upon--upon your own curious experience." - -O'Malley turned with such abruptness that the cigar ash fell down -over his clothes. The bait was strong, but the man's sympathy was not -sufficiently of a piece, he felt, to win his entire confidence. - -"I cannot discuss beliefs," he said shortly, "in the speculative way you -do. They are too real. A man doesn't argue about his love, does he?" He -spoke passionately. "Today everybody argues, discusses, speculates: no -one believes. If you had your way, you'd take away my beliefs and put in -their place some wretched little formula of science that the next -generation will prove all wrong again. It's like the N rays one of you -discovered: they never really existed at all." He laughed. Then his -flushed face turned grave again. "Beliefs are deeper than discoveries. -They are eternal." - -Stahl looked at him a moment with admiration. He moved across the cabin -toward his desk. - -"I am more with you than perhaps you understand," he said quietly, yet -without too obviously humoring him. "I am more--divided, that's all." - -"Modern!" exclaimed the other, noticing the ashes on his coat for -the first time and brushing them off impatiently. "Everything in you -expresses itself in terms of matter, forgetting that matter being in -continual state of flux is the least real of all things--" - -"Our training has been different," observed Stahl simply, interrupting -him. "I use another phraseology. Fundamentally, we are not so far -apart as you think. Our conversation of yesterday proves it, if you have -not forgotten. It is people like yourself who supply the material that -teaches people like me--helps me to advance--to speculate, though -you dislike the term." - -The Irishman was mollified, though for some time he continued in the same -strain. And the doctor let him talk, realizing that his emotion needed -the relief of this safety-valve. He used words loosely, but Stahl did not -check him; it was merely that the effort to express himself--this self -that could believe so much--found difficulty in doing so coherently in -modern language. He went very far. For the fact that while Stahl -criticized and denied, he yet understood, was a strong incentive -to talk. O'Malley plunged repeatedly over his depth, and each time the -doctor helped him in to shore. - -"Perhaps," said Stahl at length in a pause, "the greatest difference -between us is merely that whereas you jump headlong, ignoring details -by the way, I climb slowly, counting the steps and making them secure. -I deny at first because if the steps survive such denial, I know that -they are permanent. I build scaffolding. You fly." - -"Flight is quicker," put in the Irishman. - -"It is for the few," was the reply; "scaffolding is for all." - -"You spoke a few days ago of strange things," O'Malley said presently -with abruptness, "and spoke seriously too. Tell me more about that, if -you will." He sought to lead the talk away from himself, since he did -not intend to be fully drawn. "You said something about the theory that -the Earth is alive, a living being, and that the early legendary forms of -life may have been emanations--projections of herself--detached portions -of her consciousness--or something of the sort. Tell me about that -theory. Can there be really men who are thus children of the earth, -fruit of pure passion--Cosmic Beings as you hinted? It interests me -deeply." - -Dr. Stahl appeared to hesitate. - -"It is not new to me, of course," pursued the other, "but I should like -to know more." - -Stahl still seemed irresolute. "It is true," he replied at length slowly, -"that in an unguarded moment I let drop certain observations. It is -better you should consider them unsaid perhaps: forget them." - -"And why, pray?" - -The answer was well calculated to whet his appetite. - -"Because," answered the doctor, bending over to him as he crossed over to -his side, "they are dangerous thoughts to play with, dangerous to the -interests of humanity in its present state today, unsettling to the soul, -shaking the foundations of sane consciousness." He looked hard at him. -"Your own mind," he added softly, "appears to me to be already on their -track. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have in you that kind of -very passionate desire--of yearning--which might reconstruct them and -make them come true--for yourself--if you get out." - -O'Malley, his eyes shining, looked up into his face. - -"'Reconstruct--make them come true--if I get out'!" he repeated -stammeringly, fearful that if he appeared too eager the other would stop. -"You mean, of course, that this Double in me would escape and build -its own heaven?" - -Stahl nodded darkly. "Driven forth by your intense desire." After a -pause he added, "The process already begun in you would complete -itself." - -Ah! So obviously what the doctor wanted was a description of his -sensations in that haunted cabin. - -"Temporarily?" asked the Irishman under his breath. - -The other did not answer for a moment. O'Malley repeated the question. - -"Temporarily," said Stahl, turning away again toward his desk, -"unless--the yearning were too strong." - -"In which case--?" - -"Permanently. For it would draw the entire personality with it...." - -"The soul?" - -Stahl was bending over his books and papers. The answer was barely -audible. - -"Death," was the whispered word that floated across the heavy air of -that little sun-baked cabin. - -The word if spoken at all was so softly spoken that the Irishman -scarcely knew whether he actually heard it, or whether it was uttered by -his own thought. He only realized--catching some vivid current from -the other man's mind--that this separation of a vital portion of himself -that Stahl hinted at might involve a kind of nameless inner catastrophe -which should mean the loss of his personality as it existed today--an -idea, however, that held no terror for him if it meant at the same time -the recovery of what he so passionately sought. - -And another intuition flashed upon its heels--namely, that this -extraordinary doctor spoke of something he knew as a certainty; that -his amazing belief, though paraded as theory, was to him more than -theory. Had he himself undergone some experience that he dared not -speak of, and were his words based upon a personal experience instead -of, as he pretended, merely upon the observation of others? Was this a -result of his study of the big man two years ago? Was this the true -explanation of his being no longer an assistant at the H--hospital, -but only a ship's doctor? Had this "modern" man, after all, a flaming -volcano of ancient and splendid belief in him, akin to what was in -himself, yet ever fighting it? - -Thoughts raced and thundered through his mind as he watched him across -the cigar smoke. The rattling of that donkey-engine, the shouts of the -lightermen, the thuds of the sulfur-sacks--how ridiculous they all -sounded, the clatter of a futile, meaningless existence where men -gathered--rubbish, for mere bodies that lived amid dust a few years, -then returned to dust forever. - -He sprang from his sofa and crossed over to the doctor's side. Stahl -was still bending over a littered desk. - -"You, too," he cried, and though trying to say it loud, his voice could -only whisper, "you, too, must have the _Urmensch_ in your heart and -blood, for how else, by my soul, could you _know_ it all? Tell me, -doctor, tell me!" And he was on the very verge of adding, "Join us! Come -and join us!" when the little German turned his bald head slowly round -and fixed upon the excited Irishman such a cool and quenching stare that -instantly he felt himself convicted of foolishness, almost of -impertinence. - -He dropped backwards into an armchair, and the doctor at the same moment -let himself down upon the revolving stool that was nailed to the floor in -front of the desk. His hands smoothed out papers. Then he leaned forward, -still holding his companion's eyes with that steady stare which forbade -familiarity. - -"My friend," he said quietly in German, "you asked me just now to tell -you of the theory--Fechner's theory--that the Earth is a living, -conscious Being. If you care to listen, I will do so. We have time." He -glanced round at the shady cabin, took down a book from the shelf -before him, puffed his black cigar and began to read. - -"It is from one of your own people--William James; what you call a -'Hibbert Lecture' at Manchester College. It gives you an idea, at least, -of what Fechner saw. It is better than my own words." - -So Stahl, in his turn, refused to be "drawn." O'Malley, as soon as he -recovered from the abruptness of the change from that other conversation, -gave all his attention. The uneasy feeling that he was being played -with, coaxed as a specimen to the best possible point for the microscope, -passed away as the splendor of the vast and beautiful conception dawned -upon him, and shaped those nameless yearnings of his life in glowing -language. - - - - -XV - - -The shadows of the September afternoon were lengthening toward us from -the Round Pond by the time O'Malley reached this stage of his curious and -fascinating story. It was chilly under the trees, and the "wupsey-up, -wupsey-down" babies, as he termed them, had long since gone in to their -teas, or whatever it is that London babies take at six o'clock. - -We strolled home together, and he welcomed the idea of sharing a dinner -we should cook ourselves in the tiny Knightsbridge flat. "Stewpot -evenings," he called these occasions. They reminded us of camping trips -together, although it must be confessed that in the cage-like room the -"stew" never tasted quite as it did beside running water on the skirts of -the forest when the dews were gathering on the little gleaming tent, and -the wood-smoke mingled with the scents of earth and leaves. - -Passing that grotesque erection opposite the Albert Hall, gaudy in the -last touch of sunset, I saw him shudder. The spell of the ship and sea -and the blazing Sicilian sunshine lay still upon us, Etna's cones -towering beyond those gilded spikes of the tawdry Memorial. I stole a -glance at my companion. His light blue eyes shone, but with the -reflection of another sunset--the sunset of forgotten, ancient, far-off -scenes when the world was young. - -His personality held something of magic in that silent stroll homewards, -for no word fell from either one of us to break its charm. The untidy -hair escaped from beneath the broad-brimmed old hat, and his faded coat -of grey flannel seemed touched with the shadows that the dusk brings -beneath wild-olive trees. I noticed the set of his ears, and how the -upper points of them ran so sharply into the hair. His walk was springy, -light, very quiet, suggesting that he moved on open turf where a sudden -running jump would land him, not into a motor-bus, but into a mossy -covert where ferns grew. There was a certain fling of the shoulders that -had an air of rejecting streets and houses. Some fancy, wild and sweet, -caught me of a faun passing down through underbrush of woodland glades to -drink at a forest pool; and, chance giving back to me a little verse of -Alice Corbin's, I turned and murmured it while watching him: - -What dim Arcadian pastures - Have I known, -That suddenly, out of nothing, - A wind is blown, -Lifting a veil and a darkness, - Showing a purple sea-- -And under your hair, the faun's eyes - Look out on me? - -It was, of course, that whereas his body marched along Hill Street and -through Montpelier Square, his thoughts and spirit flitted through the -haunted, old-time garden he forever craved. I thought of the morrow--of -my desk in the Life Insurance Office, of the clerks with oiled hair -brushed back from the forehead, all exactly alike, trousers neatly turned -up to show fancy colored socks from bargain sales, their pockets full of -cheap cigarettes, their minds busy with painted actresses and the names -of horses! A Life Insurance Office! All London paying yearly sums to -protect themselves against--against the most interesting moment of -life. Premiums upon escape and freedom! - -Again, it was the spell of my companion's personality that turned all -this paraphernalia of the busy, modern existence into the counters in -some grotesque and rather sordid game. Tomorrow, of course, it would -all turn real and earnest again, O'Malley's story a mere poetic fancy. -But for the moment I lived it with him, and found it magnificent. - -And the talk we had that evening when the stew-pot was empty and we were -smoking on the narrow-ledged roof of the prison-house--for he always -begged for open air, and with cushions we often sat beneath the stars and -against the grimy chimney-pots--that talk I shall never forget. Life -became constructed all anew. The power of the greatest fairy tale this -world can ever know lay about me, raised to its highest expression. I -caught at least some touch of reality--of awful reality--in the idea that -this splendid globe whereon we perched like insects peeping timidly from -tiny cells, might be the body of a glorious Being--the mighty frame to -which some immense Collective Consciousness, vaster than that of men, and -wholly different in kind, might be attached. - -In the story, as I found it later in the dusty little Paddington room, -O'Malley reported, somewhat heavily, it seemed to me, the excerpts -chosen by Dr. Stahl. As an imaginative essay, they were interesting, of -course, and vitally suggestive, but in a tale of adventure such as this -they overweight the barque of fancy. Yet, in order to appreciate what -followed, it seems necessary for the mind to steep itself in something of -his ideas. The reader who dreads to think, and likes his imagination to -soar unsupported, may perhaps dispense with the balance of this section; -but to be faithful to the scaffolding whereon this Irishman built his -amazing dream, I must attempt as best I can some precis of that -conversation. - - - - -XVI - -"Every fragment of visible Nature might, as far as is known, serve as -part in some organism unlike our bodies.... As to that which can, and -that which cannot, play the part of an organism, we know very little. A -sameness greater or less with our own bodies is the basis from which we -conclude to other bodies and souls.... A certain likeness of outward -form, and again some amount of similarity in action, are what we stand on -when we argue to psychical life. But our failure, on the other side, to -discover these symptoms is no sufficient warrant for positive denial. It -is natural in this connection to refer to Fechner's vigorous advocacy." - ---F.H. BRADLEY, _Appearance and Reality_ - - -It was with an innate resistance--at least a stubborn prejudice--that -I heard him begin. The earth, of course, was but a bubble of dried fire, -a huge round clod, dead as mutton. How could it be, in any permissible -sense of the word--alive? - -Then, gradually, as he talked there among the chimney-pots of old smoky -London, there stole over me this new and disquieting sense of reality--a -strange, vast splendor, too mighty to lie in the mind with comfort. -Laughter fled away, ashamed. A new beauty, as of some amazing dawn, -flashed and broke upon the world. The autumn sky overhead, thick-sown -with its myriad stars, came down close, sifting gold and fire about my -life's dull ways. That desk in the Insurance Office of Cornhill gleamed -beyond as an altar or a possible throne. - -The glory of Fechner's immense speculation flamed about us both, majestic -yet divinely simple. Only a dim suggestion of it, of course, lay caught -in the words the Irishman used--words, as I found later, that were a -mixture of Professor James and Dr. Stahl, flavored strongly with Terence -O'Malley--but a suggestion potent enough to have haunted me ever since -and to have instilled meanings of stupendous divinity into all the -commonest things of daily existence. Mountains, seas, wide landscapes, -forests,--all I see now with emotions of wonder, delight, and awe unknown -to me before. Flowers, rain, wind, even a London fog, have come to hold -new meanings. - -I never realized before that the mere _size_ of our old planet could -have hindered the perception of so fair a vision, or her mere -quantitative bulk have killed automatically in the mind the possible idea -of her being in some sense living. A microbe, endowed with our powers of -consciousness, might similarly deny life to the body of the elephant on -which it rode; or some wee arguing atom, endowed with mind and senses, -persuade itself that the monster upon whose flesh it dwelt were similarly -a "heavenly body" of dead, inert matter; the bulk of the "world" that -carried them obstructing their perception of its Life. - -And Fechner, as it seems, was no mere dreamer, playing with a huge -poetical conception. Professor of Physics in Leipsic University, he found -time amid voluminous labors in chemistry to study electrical science -with the result that his measurements in galvanism are classic to this -day. His philosophical work was more than considerable. "A book on the -atomic theory, classic also; four elaborate mathematical and experimental -volumes on what he called psychophysics (many persons consider Fechner to -have practically founded scientific psychology in the first of these -books); a volume on organic evolution, and two works on experimental -aesthetics, in which again Fechner is thought by some judges to have laid -the foundations of a new science," are among his other performances.... -"All Leipsic mourned him when he died, for he was the pattern of the -ideal German scholar, as daringly original in his thought as he was -homely in his life, a modest, genial, laborious slave to truth and -learning.... His mind was indeed one of those multitudinously organized -crossroads of truth which are occupied only at rare intervals by children -of men, and from which nothing is either too far or too near to be seen -in due perspective. Patientest observation, exactest mathematics, -shrewdest discrimination, humanest feeling, flourished in him on the -largest scale, with no apparent detriment to one another. He was in fact -a philosopher in the 'great' sense." - -"Yes," said O'Malley softly in my ear as we leaned against the chimneys -and watched the tobacco curl up to the stars, "and it was this man's -imagination that had evidently caught old Stahl and bowled him over. -I never fathomed the doctor quite. His critical and imaginative apparatus -got a bit mixed up, I suspect, for one moment he cursed me for asking -'suspicious questions,' and the next sneered sarcastically at me for -boiling over with a sudden inspirational fancy of my own. He never -gave himself away completely, and left me to guess that he made that -Hospital place too hot to hold him. He was a wonderful bird. But every -time I aimed at him I shot wide and hit a cloud. Meantime he peppered -me all over--one minute urging me into closer intimacy with my -Russian--his cosmic being, his _Urmensch_ type--so that he might study -my destruction, and half an hour later doing his utmost apparently to -protect me from him and keep me sane and balanced." His laugh rang -out over the roofs. - -"The net result," he added, his face tilted toward the stars as though -he said it to the open sky rather than to me, "was that he pushed me -forwards into the greatest adventure life has ever brought to me. I -believe, I verily believe that sometimes, there were moments of -unconsciousness--semi-consciousness perhaps--when I really did leave my -body--caught away as Moses, or was it Job or Paul?--into a Third Heaven, -where I touched a bit of Reality that fairly made me reel with happiness -and wonder." - -"Well, but Fechner--and his great idea?" I brought him back. - -He tossed his cigarette down into the back-garden that fringed the -Park, leaning over to watch its zigzag flight of flame. - -"Is simply this," he replied, "--'that not alone the earth but the -whole Universe in its different spans and wave-lengths, is everywhere -alive and conscious.' He regards the spiritual as the rule in Nature, not -the exception. The professorial philosophers have no vision. Fechner -towers above them as a man of vision. He dared to imagine. He made -discoveries--whew!!" he whistled, "and such discoveries!" - -"To which the scholars and professors of today," I suggested, "would -think reply not even called for?" - -"Ah," he laughed, "the solemn-faced Intellectuals with their narrow -outlook, their atrophied vision, and their long words! Perhaps! But in -Fechner's universe there is room for every grade of spiritual being -between man and God. The vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders -of body. He believes passionately in the Earth Soul, he treats her as our -special guardian angel; we can pray to the Earth as men pray to their -saints. The Earth has a Collective Consciousness. We rise upon the Earth -as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow out of her soil as leaves grow -from a tree. Sometimes we find our bigger life and realize that we are -parts of her bigger collective consciousness, but as a rule we are aware -only of our separateness, as individuals. These moments of cosmic -consciousness are rare. They come with love, sometimes with pain, music -may bring them too, but above all--landscape and the beauty of Nature! -Men are too petty, conceited, egoistic to welcome them, clinging for dear -life to their precious individualities." - -He drew breath and then went on: "'Fechner likens our individual -persons on the earth to so many sense-organs of her soul, adding to -her perceptive life so long as our own life lasts. She absorbs our -perceptions, just as they occur, into her larger sphere of knowledge. -When one of us dies, it is as if an eye of the world were closed, for -all perceptive contributions from that particular quarter cease.'" - -"Go on," I exclaimed, realizing that he was obviously quoting verbatim -fragments from James that he had since pondered over till they had -become his own, "Tell me more. It is delightful and very splendid." - -"Yes," he said, "I'll go on quick enough, provided you promise me one -thing: and that is--to understand that Fechner does not regard the -Earth as a sort of big human being. If a being at all, she is a being -utterly different from us in kind, as of course we know she is in -structure. Planetary beings, as a class, would be totally different from -any other beings that we know. He merely protests at the presumption of -our insignificant human knowledge in denying some kind of life and -consciousness to a form so beautifully and marvelously organized as -that of the earth! The heavenly bodies, he holds, are beings superior to -men in the scale of life--a vaster order of intelligence altogether. A -little two-legged man with his cocksure reason strutting on its tiny -brain as the apex of attainment he ridicules. D'ye see, now?" - -I gasped, I lit a big pipe--and listened. He went on. This time it was -clearly a page from that Hibbert Lecture Stahl had mentioned--the one -in which Professor James tries to give some idea of Fechner's aim and -scope, while admitting that he "inevitably does him miserable injustice -by summarizing and abridging him." - -"Ages ago the earth was called an animal," I ventured. "We all know -that." - -"But Fechner," he replied, "insists that a planet is a higher class of -being than either man or animal--'a being whose enormous size requires an -altogether different plan of life.'" - -"An inhabitant of the ether--?" - -"You've hit it," he replied eagerly. "Every element has its own living -denizens. Ether, then, also has hers--the globes. 'The ocean of ether, -whose waves are light, has also her denizens--higher by as much as -their element is higher, swimming without fins, flying without wings, -moving, immense and tranquil, as by a half-spiritual force through the -half-spiritual sea which they inhabit,' sensitive to the slightest pull -of one another's attraction: beings in every way superior to us. Any -imagination, you know," he added, "can play with the idea. It is old as -the hills. But this chap showed how and why it could be actually true." - -"This superiority, though?" I queried. "I should have guessed their -stage of development lower than ours, rather than higher." - -"Different," he answered, "different. That's the point." - -"Ah!" I watched a shooting star dive across our thick, wet atmosphere, -and caught myself wondering whether the flash and heat of that hurrying -little visitor produced any reaction in this Collective Consciousness -of the huge Body whereon we perched and chattered, and upon which -later it would fall in finest dust. - -"It is by insisting on the differences as well as on the resemblances," -rushed on the excited O'Malley, "that he makes the picture of the earth's -life so concrete. Think a moment. For instance, our animal organization -comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to and fro, of stretching -our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only our defect." - -"Defect!" I cried. "But we're so proud of it!" - -'"What are our legs,'" he laughed, "'but crutches, by means of which, -with restless efforts, we go hunting after the things we have not inside -ourselves? The Earth is no such cripple; why should she who already -possesses within herself the things we so painfully pursue, have limbs -analogous to ours? What need has she of arms, with nothing to reach -for? Of a neck with no head to carry? Of eyes or nose, when she finds -her way through space without either, and has the millions of eyes of -all her animals to guide their movements on her surface, and all their -noses to smell the flowers she grows?'" - -"We are literally a part of her, then--projections of her immense life, -as it were--one of the projections, at least?" - -"Exactly. And just as we are ourselves a part of the earth," he -continued, taking up my thought at once, "so are our organs her organs. -'She is, as it were, eye and ear over her whole extent--all that we see -and hear in separation she sees and hears at once.'" He stood up beside -me and spread his hands out to the stars and over the trees and paths -of the Park at our feet, where the throngs of men and women walked -and talked together in the cool of the evening. His enthusiasm grew as -the idea of this German's towering imagination possessed him. - -"'She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon her surface, -and their multitudinous conscious relations with each other she takes -up into her higher and more general conscious life.'" - -He leaned over the parapet and drew me to his side. I stared with him -at the reflection of London town in the sky, thinking of the glow and -heat and restless stir of the great city and of the frantic strivings of -its millions for success--money, power, fame, a few, here and there, for -spiritual success. The roar of its huge trafficking beat across the night -in ugly thunder to our ears. I thought of the other cities of the world; -of its villages; of shepherds among the lonely hills; of its myriad wild -creatures in forest, plain, and mountain... - -"All this she takes up into her great heart as part of herself!" I -murmured. - -"All this," he replied softly, as the sound of the Band beyond the -Serpentine floated over to us on our roof; "--the separate little -consciousnesses of all the cities, all the tribes, all the nations of -men, animals, flowers, insects--everything." He again opened his arms to -the sky. He drew in deep breaths of the night air. The dew glistened on -the slates behind us. Far across the towers of Westminster a yellow moon -rose slowly, dimming the stars. Big Ben, deeply booming, trembled on -the air nine of her stupendous vibrations. Automatically, I counted -them--subconsciously. - -"And all our subconscious sensations are also hers," he added, catching -my thought again; "our dreams but half divined, our aspirations half -confessed, our tears, our yearnings, and our--prayers." - -At the moment it almost seemed to me as if our two minds joined, each -knowing the currents of the other's thought, and both caught up, gathered -ill, folded comfortably away into the stream of a Consciousness far -bigger than either. It was like a momentary, specific proof of what -he urged--a faint pulse-beat we heard of the soul of the earth; and it -was amazingly uplifting. - -"Every form of life, then, is of importance," I heard myself thinking, -or saying, for I hardly knew which. "The tiniest efforts of value--even -the unrecognized ones, and those that seem futile." - -"Even the failures," he whispered, "--the moments when we do not trust -her." - -We stood for some moments in silence. Presently, with a hand upon my -shoulder, he drew me down again among our rugs against the chimney-stack. - -"And there are some of us," he said gently, yet with a voice that held -the trembling of an immense joy, "who know a more intimate relationship -with their great Mother than the rest, perhaps. By the so-called Love -of Nature, or by some artless simplicity of soul, wholly unmodern of -course, perhaps felt by children or poets mostly, they lie caught close -to her own deep life, knowing the immense sweet guidance of her mighty -soul, divinely mothered, strangers to all the strife for material -gain--to that 'unrest which men miscall delight,'--primitive children of -her potent youth ... offspring of pure passion ... each individual -conscious of her weight and drive behind him--" His words faded away into -a whisper that became unintelligible, then inaudible; but his thought -somehow continued itself in my own mind. - -"The simple life," I said in a low tone; "the Call of the Wild, raised -to its highest power?" - -But he changed my sentence a little. - -"The call," he answered, without turning to look at me, speaking it -into the night about us, "the call to childhood, the true, pure, vital -childhood of the Earth--the Golden Age--before men tasted of the Tree and -knew themselves separate; when the lion and the lamb lay down together -and a little child could lead them. A time and state, that is, of which -such phrases can be symbolical." - -"And of which there may be here and there some fearful exquisite -survival?" I suggested, remembering Stahl's words. - -His eyes shone with the fire of his passion. "Of which on that little -tourist steamer I found one!" - -The wind that fanned our faces came perhaps across the arid wastes -of Bayswater and the North-West. It also came from the mountains and -gardens of this lost Arcadia, vanished for most beyond recovery.... - -"The Hebrew poets called it Before the Fall," he went on, "and later -poets the Golden Age; today it shines through phrases like the Land of -Heart's Desire, the Promised Land, Paradise, and what not; while the -minds of saint and mystic have ever dreamed of it as union with their -deity. For it is possible and open to all, to every heart, that is, not -blinded by the cloaking horror of materialism which blocks the doorways -of escape and prisons self behind the drab illusion that the outer form -is the reality and riot the inner thought...." - -The hoarse shouting of a couple of drunken men floated to us from the -pavements, and crossing over, we peered down toward the opening of Sloane -Street, watching a moment the stream of broughams, motors, and -pedestrians. The two men with the rage of an artificial stimulant in -their brains reeled out of sight. A big policeman followed slowly. The -night-life of the great glaring city poured on unceasingly--the stream -of souls all hurrying by divers routes and means toward a state where -they sought to lose themselves--to forget the pressure of the bars that -held them--to escape the fret and worry of their harassing personalities, -and touch some fringe of happiness! All so sure they knew the way--yet -hurrying really in the wrong direction--outwards instead of inwards; -afraid to be--simple.... - -We moved back to our rugs. For a long time neither of us found -anything to say. Soon I led the way down the creaking ladder indoors -again, and we entered the stuffy little sitting-room of the tiny flat he -temporarily occupied. I turned up an electric light, but O'Malley begged -me to lower it. I only had time to see that his eyes were still aglow. We -sat by the open window. He drew a worn notebook from his still more -worn coat; but it was too dark for him to read. He knew it all by heart. - - - - -XVII - - -Some of Fechner's reasons for thinking the Earth a being superior in the -scale to ourselves, he gave, but it was another passage that lingered -chiefly in my heart, the description of the daring German's joy in -dwelling upon her perfections--later, too, of his first simple vision. -Though myself wholly of the earth, earthy in the ordinary sense, the -beauty of the thoughts live in my spirit to this day, transfiguring even -that dingy Insurance Office, streaming through all my dullest, hardest -daily tasks with the inspiration of a simple delight that helps me over -many a difficult weary time of work and duty. - -"'To carry her precious freight through the hours and seasons what form -could be more excellent than hers--being as it is horse, wheels, and -wagon all in one. Think of her beauty--a shining ball, sky-blue and -sunlit over one half, the other bathed in starry night, reflecting the -heavens from all her waters, myriads of lights and shadows in the folds -of her mountains and windings of her valleys she would be a spectacle -of rainbow glory, could one only see her from afar as we see parts of -her from her own mountain tops. Every quality of landscape that has -a name would then be visible in her all at once--all that is delicate or -graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or -cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. _That landscape is her face_--a peopled -landscape, too, for men's eyes would appear in it like diamonds among the -dew-drops. Green would be the dominant color, but the blue atmosphere -and the clouds would enfold her as a bride is shrouded in her veil--a -veil the vapory, transparent folds of which the earth, through her -ministers the winds, never tires of laying and folding about herself -anew.' - -"She needs, as a sentient organism," he continued, pointing into the -curtain of blue night beyond the window, "no heart or brain or lungs -as we do, for she is--different. 'Their functions she performs _through -us_! She has no proper muscles or limbs of her own, and the only objects -external to her are the other stars. To these her whole mass reacts by -the most exquisite alterations in its total gait and by the still more -exquisite vibratory responses in its substance. Her ocean reflects the -lights of heaven as in a mighty mirror, her atmosphere refracts them like -a monstrous lens, the clouds and snowfields combine them into white, -the woods and flowers disperse them into colors.... Men have always -made fables about angels, dwelling in the light, needing no earthly food -or drink, messengers between ourselves and God. Here are actually -existent beings, dwelling in the light and moving through the sky, -needing neither food nor drink, intermediaries between God and us, -obeying His commands. So, if the heavens really are the home of angels, -the heavenly bodies must be those very angels, for other creatures there -are none. Yes! the Earth is our great common guardian angel, who -watches over all our interests combined.' - -"And then," whispered the Irishman, seeing that I still eagerly listened, -"give your ear to one of his moments of direct vision. Note its -simplicity, and the authority of its conviction: - -"'On a certain spring morning I went out to walk. The fields were green, -the birds sang, the dew glistened, the smoke was rising, here and there a -man appeared; a light as of transfiguration lay on all things. It was -only a little bit of the earth; it was only a moment of her existence; -and yet as my look embraced her more and more it seemed to me not -only so beautiful an idea, but so true and clear a fact, that she is an -angel, an angel so rich and fresh and flower-like, and yet going her -round in the skies so firmly and so at one with herself, turning her -whole living face to Heaven, and carrying me along with her into that -Heaven, that I asked myself how the opinions of men could ever have so -spun themselves away from life as to deem the earth only a dry clod, -and to seek for angels above it or about it in the emptiness of the -sky,--only to find them nowhere.'" - -Fire-engines, clanging as with a hurrying anger through the night, -broke in upon his impassioned sentences; the shouts of the men drowned -his last words.... - -Life became very wonderful inside those tight, confining walls, for -the spell and grandeur of the whole conception lifted the heart. Even -if belief failed, in the sense of believing--a shilling, it succeeded in -the sense of believing--a symphony. The invading beauty swept about us -both. Here was a glory that was also a driving power upon which any -but a man half dead could draw for practical use. For the big conceptions -fan the will. The little pains of life, they make one feel, need not kill -true joy, nor deaden effort. - -"Come," said O'Malley softly, interrupting my dream of hope and -splendor, "let us walk together through the Park to your place. It is -late, and you, I know, have to be up early in the morning ... earlier -than I." - -And presently we passed the statue of Achilles and got our feet upon -the turf beyond--a little bit of living planet in the middle of the -heavy smothering London town. About us, over us, within us, stirred the -awe of that immense idea. Upon that bit of living, growing turf we -passed toward the Marble Arch, treading, as it were, the skin of a huge -Body--the physical expression of a grand angelic Being, alive, sentient, -conscious. Conscious, moreover, of our little separate individual selves -who walked ... a Being who cared; who felt us; who knew, understood, -and--loved us as a mother her own offspring.... "To whom men could -pray as they pray to their saints." - -The conception, even thus dimly and confusedly adumbrated, brought a new -sense of life--terrific and eternal. All living things upon the earth's -surface were emanations of her mighty central soul; all--from the gods -and fairies of olden time who knew it, to the men and women of Today who -have forgotten it. - -The gods--! - -Were these then projections of her personality--aspects and facets -of her divided self--emanations now withdrawn? Latent in her did they -still exist as moods or Powers--true, alive, everlasting, but unmanifest? -Still knowable to simple men and to Children of Nature? - -Was this the giant truth that Stahl had built on Fechner? - -Everything about us seemed to draw together into an immense and -towering configuration that included trees and air and the sweep of -open park--the looming and overwhelming beauty of one of these very -gods survived--Pan, the eternal and the splendid ... a mood of the -Earth-life, a projection clothed with the light of stars, the cloudy air, -the passion of the night, the thrill of an august, extended Mood. - -And the others were not so very far behind--those other little parcels -of Earth's Consciousness the Greeks and early races, the simple, -primitive, childlike peoples of the dawn, divined the existence of, and -labeled "gods" ... and worshipped ... so as to draw their powers into -themselves by ecstasy and vision ... - -Could, then, worship now still recall them? Was the attitude of even -one true worshipper's heart the force necessary to touch that particular -aspect of the mighty total Consciousness of Earth, and call forth those -ancient forms of beauty? Could it be that this idea--the idea of "the -gods"--was thus forever true and vital...? And might they be known -and felt in the heart if not actually in some suggested form? - -I only know that as we walked home past the doors of that dingy -Paddington house where Terence O'Malley kept his dusty books and -papers and so to my own quarters, these things he talked about dropped -into my mind with a bewildering splendor to stay forever. His words I -have forgotten, or how he made such speculations worth listening to at -all. Yet, I hear them singing in my blood as though of yesterday; and -often when that conflict comes 'twixt duty and desire that makes life -sometimes so vain and bitter, the memory comes to lift with strength -far greater than my own. The Earth can heal and bless. - - - - -XVIII - - -Slowly, taking life easily, the little steamer puffed its way across the -Ionian Sea. The pyramid of Etna, bluer even than the sky, dominated -the western horizon long after the heel of Italy had faded, then melted -in its turn into the haze of cloud and distance. No other sails were -visible. - -With the passing of Calabria spring had leaped into the softness of -full summer, and the breezes were gentle as those that long ago fanned -the cheeks and hair of Io, beloved of Zeus, as she flew southwards toward -the Nile. The passengers, less lovely than that fair daughter of Argos, -and with the unrest of thinner adventure in their blood, basked lazily -in the sun; but the sea was not less haunted for those among them whose -hearts could travel. The Irishman at any rate slipped beyond the confines -of the body, viewing that ancient scene as she had done, from above. -His widening consciousness expanded to include it. - -Cachalots spouted; dolphins danced, as though still to those wild -flutes of Dionysus; porpoises rolled beneath the surface of the -transparent waves, diving below the vessel's sides but just in time to -save their shiny noses; and all day long, ignoring the chart upon the -stairway walls, the tourists turned their glasses eastwards, searching -for a first sight of Greece. - -O'Malley, meanwhile, trod the decks of a new ship. For him now sea -and sky were doubly peopled. The wind brought messages of some divine -deliverance approaching slowly, the heat of that pearly, shining sun -warmed centers of his being that hitherto the world kept chill. The land -toward which the busy steamer moved he knew, of course, was but the -shell from which the inner spirit of beauty once vivifying it had long -since passed away. Yet it remained a clue. That ancient loveliness, as a -mood of the earth's early consciousness, was buried, not destroyed. -Eternally it still flamed somewhere. And, long before the days of Greece, -he knew, it had existed in yet fuller and more complete manifestation: -that earliest, vastly splendid Mood of the earth's soul, too mighty for -any existence that the history of humanity can recall, and too remote -for any but the most daringly imaginative minds even to conceive. The -_Urwelt_ Mood, as Stahl himself admitted, even while it called to him, -was a reconstruction that to men today could only seem--dangerous. - -And his own little Self, guided by the inarticulate stranger, was being -led at last toward its complete recapture. - -Yet, while he crawled slowly with the steamer over a tiny portion of -the spinning globe, feeling that at the same time he crawled toward a -spot upon it where access would be somehow possible to this huge -expression of her first Life--what was it, phrased timidly as men phrase -big thoughts today, that he really believed? Even in our London talks, -intimate as they were, interpreted too by gesture, facial expression, -and--silence, his full meaning evaded precise definition. "There are no -words, there are no words," he kept saying, shrugging his shoulders and -stroking his untidy hair. "In me, deep down, it all lies clear and plain -and strong; but language cannot seize a mode of life that throve before -language existed. If you cannot catch the picture from my thoughts, I -give up the whole dream in despair." And in his written account, owing -to its strange formlessness, the result was not a little bewildering. - -Briefly stated, however--that remnant, at least, which I discover in -my own mind when attempting to tell the story to others--what he -felt, believed, _lived_, at any rate while the adventure lasted, was -this:-- - -That the Earth, as a living, conscious Being, had known visible -projections of her consciousness similar to those projections of our own -personality which the advanced psychologists of today now envisage as -possible; that the simple savagery of his own nature, and the poignant -yearnings derived from it, were in reality due to his intimate closeness -to the life of the Earth; that, whereas in the body the fulfillment of -these longings was impossible, in the spirit he might yet know contact -with the soul of the planet, and thus experience their complete -satisfaction. Further, that the portion of his personality which could -thus enter this heaven of its own subjective construction, was that -detachable portion Stahl had spoken of as being "malleable by desire and -longing," leaving the body partially and temporarily sometimes in sleep, -and, at death, completely. More,--that the state thus entered would mean -a quasi-merging back into the life of the Earth herself, of which he was -a partial expression. - -This closeness to Nature was today so rare as to be almost unrecognized -as possible. Its possession constituted its owner what the doctor -called a "Cosmic Being"--a being scarcely differentiated from the life -of the Earth Spirit herself--a direct expression of her life, a survival -of a time before such expressions had separated away from her and become -individualized as human creatures. Moreover, certain of these earliest -manifestations or projections of her consciousness, knowing in their -huge shapes of fearful yet simple beauty a glory of her own being, still -also survived. The generic term of "gods" might describe their status as -interpreted to the little human power called Imagination. - -This call to the simple life of primal innocence and wonder that had ever -brimmed the heart of the Irishman, acknowledged while not understood, -might have slumbered itself away with the years among modern conditions -into atrophy and denial, had he not chanced to encounter a more direct -and vital instance of it even than himself. The powerfully-charged being -of this Russian stranger had summoned it forth. The mere presence of this -man quickened and evoked this faintly-stirring center in his psychic -being that opened the channel of return. Speech, as any other -explanation, was unnecessary. To resist was still within his power. To -accept and go was also open to him. The "inner catastrophe" he feared -need not perhaps be insuperable or permanent. - -"Remember," the doctor had said to him at the end of that last -significant conversation, "this berth in my stateroom is freely at your -disposal till Batoum." And O'Malley, thanking him, had shaken off -that restraining hand upon his arm, knowing that he would never make -use of it again. - -For the Russian stranger and his son had somehow made him free. - -Between that cabin and the decks he spent his day. Occasionally he -would go below to report progress, as it were, by little sentences which -he divined would be acceptable, and at the same time gave expression -to his own growing delight. The boy, meanwhile, was everywhere, playing -alone like a wild thing; one minute in the bows, hat off, gazing -across the sea beneath a shading hand, and the next leaning over the -stern-rails to watch the churning foam that drove them forwards. At -regular intervals he, too, rushed to the cabin and brought communications -to his parent. - -"Tomorrow at dawn," observed the Irishman, "we shall see Cape Mattapan -rising from the sea. After that, Athens for a few hours; then coasting -through the Cyclades, close to the mainland often." And glancing over to -the berth, while pretending to be busy with his steamer-trunk, he saw the -great smile of happiness break over the other's face like a sunrise.... - -For it was clear to him that with the approach to Greece, a change -began to come over his companions. It was noticeable chiefly in the -father. The joy that filled the man, too fine and large to be named -excitement, passed from him in radiations that positively seemed to -carry with them a physical extension. This, of course, was purely a -clairvoyant effect upon the mind--O'Malley's divining faculty -visualized the spiritual traits of the man's dilating Self. But, -nevertheless, the truth remained that--somehow he increased. He grew; -became interiorly more active, alive, potent; and of this singular waxing -of the inner spirit something passed outwards and stood with rare dignity -about his very figure. - -And this manifestation of themselves was due to that expansion of -the inner life caused by happiness. The little point of their -personalities they showed normally to the world was but a single facet, a -tip as it were of their whole selves. More lay within, beyond. As with -the rest of the world, a great emotion stimulated and summoned it forth -into activity nearer the surface. Clearly, for these two Greece -symbolized a point of departure of a great hidden passion. Something they -expected lay waiting for them there. Guidance would come thence. - -And, by reflection perhaps as much as by direct stimulation, the same -change made itself felt in himself. Joy caught him--the joy of a -home-coming, long deferred.... - -At the same time, the warning of Dr. Stahl worked in him, if -subconsciously only. He showed this by mixing more with the other -passengers. He chatted with the Captain, who was as pleased with his -big family as though he had personally provided the weather that made -them happy; with the Armenian priest, who was eager to show that he -had read "a much of T'ackeray and Keeplin"; and especially with the -boasting Moscow merchant, who by this time "owned" the smoking-room and -imposed his verbose commonplaces upon one and all with authoritative -self-confidence in six languages--a provincial mind in full display. The -latter in particular held him to a normal humanity; his atmosphere -breathed the wholesome thickness of the majority of humankind--ordinary, -egoistic, with the simplicity of the uninspiring sort. The merchant acted -upon him as a sedative, and that day the Irishman took him in large -doses, allopathically, for his talk formed an admirable antidote to the -stress of that other burning excitement that, according to Stahl, -threatened to disintegrate his personality. - -Though hardly in the sense he intended, the fur-merchant was entirely -delightful--engaging as a child; for, among other marked qualities, he -possessed the unerring instinct of the snob which made him select for -his friends those whose names or position might glorify his banal -insignificance--and his stories were vivid pictorial illustrations of -this useful worldly faculty. O'Malley listened with secret delight, -keeping a grave face and dropping in occasional innocent questions to -heighten the color or increase the output. Others in the circle responded -in kind, feeling the same chord vibrating in themselves. Even the priest, -like a repeating-gun, continually discharged his little secret pride that -Byron had occupied a room in that Venetian monastery where he lived; and -at last O'Malley himself was conscious of an inclination to report his -own immense and recently discovered kinship with a greater soul and -consciousness than his own. After all, he reflected with a deep thrill -while he listened, the desire of the snob was but a crude and simple form -of the desire of the mystic:--to lose one's little self in a Self which -is greater! - -Then, weary of them all and their minute personal interests, he left -the smoking-room and joined the boy again, running absurd races with -him from stern to bow, playing hide-and-seek among the decks, even -playing shuffle-board together. They sweated in the blazing sun and -watched the dance of the sea; caught the wind in their faces with a shout -of joy, or with pointing fingers followed the changing outlines of the -rare, soft clouds that sailed the world of blue above them. There was no -speech between them, and both felt that other things, invisible, swift, -and spirit-footed, whose home is just beyond the edge of life as the -senses report life, played wildly with them. The smoking-room then, -with its occupants so greedy for the things that money connotes--the -furs, champagne, cigars, and heavy possessions that were symbols of the -personal aggrandizement they sought and valued--seemed to the -Irishman like a charnel-house where those about to die sat making -inventories in blind pride of the things they must leave behind. - -It was, indeed, a contrast of Death and Life. For beside him, with -that playing, silent boy, coursed the power of transforming loveliness -which had breathed over the world before her surface knew this swarming -race of men. The life of the Earth knew no need of outward -acquisition, possessing all things so completely in herself. And he--he -was her child--O glory! Joy passing belief! - -"Oh!" he cried once with passion, turning to the fair-haired figure of -youth who stood with him in the bows, meeting the soft wind,--"Oh, -to have heard the trees whispering together in the youth of the world, -and felt one of the earliest winds that ever blew across the cooling -seas!" - -And the boy, not understanding the words, but responding with a -perfect naturalness to the emotion that drove them forth, seized his -hand and with an extraordinarily free motion as of flying, raced with -him down the decks, happy, laughing, hair loose over his face, and with -a singular action of the shoulders as though he somehow--cantered. -O'Malley remembered his vision of the Flying Shapes.... - -Toward the evening, however, the boy disappeared, keeping close to -his father's side, and after dinner both retired early to their cabin. - -And the ship, meanwhile, drew ever nearer to the haunted land. - - - - -XIX - -"Privacy is ignorance." - ---JOSIAH ROYCE - - -Somewhat after the manner of things suffered in vivid dreams, where -surprise is numbed and wonder becomes the perfect password, the Irishman -remembers the sequence of little events that filled the following day. - -Yet his excitement held nothing of the vicious fling of fever; it was -spread over the entire being rather than located hotly in the brain and -blood alone; and it "derived," as it were, from tracts of his personality -usually unstirred, atrophied indeed in most men, that connected him -as by a delicate network of feelers with Nature and the Earth. He came -gradually to feel them, as a man in certain abnormal conditions becomes -conscious of the bodily processes that customarily go on in himself -without definite recognition. - -Stahl could have told him, had he cared to seek the information, that -this fringe of wider consciousness, stretching to the stars and winds -and earth, was the very part that had caused his long unrest and -yearning--the part that knew the Earth as mother and sought the sweet -and savage freedom of what he called with the poverty of modern -terms--primitive. The channels leading toward a state of Cosmic -Consciousness, one with the Earth Life, were being now flushed and -sluiced by the forces emanating from the persons of his new companions. - -And as this new state slowly usurped command, the readjustment of -his spiritual economy thus involved, caused other portions of himself -to sink into temporary abeyance. While it alarmed him, it was too -delicious to resist. He made no real attempt to resist. Yet he knew full -well that the portion sinking thus out of sight was what folk with such -high pride call Reason, Judgment, Common Sense! - -In common with animal, bird, and insect life, all intimately close to -Nature, he began to feel as realities those subtle currents of the -Earth's personality by which the seals know direction in the depths of a -thousand-mile sea, by which the homing pigeons blaze trails through -space, birds fly south, the wild bees know their pathways, and all simple -life, from the Red Indian to the Red Ant, acknowledges the viewless -guidance of the mother's enveloping heart. The cosmic life ran through -his being, lighting signals, offering service, more--claiming leadership. - -With it, however, came no loss of individuality, but rather a powerful -increase of life by means of which for the first time he dreamed of a -fuller existence which should eventually harmonize and combine the -ancient simplicity of soul that claimed the Earth, with the modern -complexity which, indulged alone, rendered the world so ugly and -insignificant...! He experienced an immense, driving push upon what -Bergson has called the _elan vital_ of his being. - -The opening charge of his new discovery, however, was more than -disconcerting, and it is not surprising that he lost his balance. Its -attack and rush were overwhelming. Thus, it was a kind of exalted -speculative wonder lying behind his inner joy that caused his mistakes. -He had imagined, for instance, that the first sight of Greece would bring -some climax of revelation, making clear to what particular type of early -life the spirits of his companions conformed; more, that they would then -betray themselves to one and all for what they were in some effort to -escape, in some act of unrestraint, something, in a word, that would -explain themselves to the world of passengers, and focus them upon the -doctor's microscope forever. - -Yet when Greece showed her first fair rim of outline, his companions -still slept peacefully in their bunks. The anticipated _denouement_ did -not appear. Nothing happened. It was not the mere sight of so much land -lying upon the sea's cool cheek that could prove vital in an adventure -of such a kind. For the adventure remained spiritual. O'Malley had -merely confused two planes of consciousness. As usual, he saw the thing -"whole" in that extraordinary way to which his imagination alone held -the key; and hence his error. - -Yet the moment has ever remained for him one of vital, stirring -splendor, significant as life or death. He remembers that he was early -on deck and saw the dawn blow up softly from behind the islands with -a fresh, salt wind that blew at the same time like music into his very -heart. Golden clear it rose; and just below, like the petals of some -vast, archetypal flower that gave it birth, the low blue hills of coast -and island opened magically into blossom. The rocky cliffs of Mattapan -slipped past; the smooth, bare slopes of the ancient shore-line followed; -treeless peaks and shoulders, abrupt precipices, summits and ridges all -exquisitely rosy and alive. He had seen Greece before, yet never thus, -and the emotion that invaded every corner of his larger consciousness lay -infinitely deeper than any mere pseudo-classical thrill he had known in -previous years. He saw it, felt it, knew it from within, instead of as a -spectator from without. This dawn-mood of the Earth was also his own; -and upon his spirit, as upon her blue-crowned hills, lay the tide of high -light with its delicate swift blush. He saw it with her--through one of -her opened eyes. - -The hot hours the steamer lay in the Piraeus Harbor were wearisome, -the noise of loading and unloading cargo worse even than at Catania. -While the tourist passengers hurried fussily ashore, carrying guidebooks -and cameras, to chatter among the ruined temples, he walked the decks -alone, dreaming his great dream, conscious that he spun through leagues -of space with the great Being who more and more possessed him. Beyond -the shipping and the masts collected there from all the ports of the -Mediterranean and the Levant, he watched the train puffing slowly to -the station that lay in the shadow of Theseus' Temple, but his eyes at -the same tune strained across the haze toward Eleusis Bay, and while -his ears caught the tramping feet of the long Torchlight Procession, some -power of his remoter consciousness divined the forms of hovering gods, -expressions of his vast Mother's personality with which, in worship, this -ancient people had believed it possible to merge themselves. The -significant truths that lay behind the higher Mysteries, degraded since -because forgotten and misinterpreted, trooped powerfully down into his -mind. For the supreme act of this profound cult, denied by a grosser age -that seeks to telephone to heaven, deeming itself thereby "advanced," lay -in the union of the disciple with his god, the god he worshipped all his -life, and into whose Person he slipped finally at death by a kind of -marriage rite. - -"The gods!" ran again through his mind with passion and delight, as -the letter of his early studies returned upon him, accompanied now for -the first time by the in-living spirit that interpreted them. "The -gods!--Moods of her giant life, manifestations of her spreading -Consciousness pushed outwards, Powers of life and truth and beauty...!" - - * * * * * - -And, meanwhile, Dr. Stahl, sometimes from a distance, sometimes coming -close, kept over him a kind of half-paternal, half-professional -attendance, the Irishman accepting his ministrations without resentment, -almost with indifference. - -"I shall be on deck between two and three in the morning to see the -comet," the German observed to him casually toward evening as they -met on the bridge. "We may meet perhaps--" - -"All right, doctor; it's more than possible," replied O'Malley, realizing -how closely he was being watched. - -In his mind at the moment another sentence ran, the thought growing -stronger and stronger within him as the day declined: - -"It will come tonight--come as an inner catastrophe not unlike that -of death! I shall hear the call--to escape...." - -For he knew, as well as if it had been told to him in so many words, -that the sleep of his two companions all day was in the nature of a -preparation. The fluid projections of themselves were all the time active -elsewhere. Their bodies heavily slumbered; their spirits were out and -alert. Summoned forth by those strange and radiant evocative forces -that even in the dullest minds "Greece" stirs into life, they had -temporarily escaped. Again he saw those shapes of cloud and wind moving -with swift freedom over the long, bare hills. Again and again the image -returned. With the night a similar separation of the personality might -come to himself too. Stahl's warning passed in letters of fire across his -inner sight. With a relief that yet contained uneasiness he watched his -shambling figure disappear down the stairway. He was alone. - - - - -XX - -"To everything that a man does he must give his undivided attention or -his Ego. When he has done this, thoughts soon arise in him, or else a new -method of apprehension miraculously appears.... - -"Very remarkable it is that through this play of his personality man -first becomes aware of his specific freedom, and that it seems to him as -though he awaked out of a deep sleep as though he were only now at home -in the world, and as if the light of day were breaking now over his -interior life for the first time.... The substance of these impressions -which affect us we call Nature, and thus Nature stands in an immediate -relationship to those functions of our bodies which we call senses. -Unknown and mysterious relations of our body allow us to surmise unknown -and mysterious correlations with Nature, and therefore Nature is that -wondrous fellowship into which our bodies introduce us, and which we -learn to know through the mode of its constitutions and abilities." - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Sais_. Translated by U.C.B. - - -And so, at last, the darkness came, a starry darkness of soft blue -shadows and phosphorescent sea out of which the hills of the Cyclades -rose faint as pictures of floating smoke a wind might waft away like -flowers to the sky. - -The plains of Marathon lay far astern, blushing faintly with their -scarlet tamarisk blossoms. The strange purple glow of sunset upon -Hymettus had long since faded. A hush grew over the sea, now a -marvelous cobalt blue. The earth, gently sleeping, manifested dreamily. -Into the subconscious state passed one half of her huge, gentle life. - -The Irishman, responding to the eternal spell of her dream-state, -experienced in quite a new way the magic of her Night-Mood. He found -it more difficult than ever to realize as separate entities the little -things that moved about through the upper surface of her darkness. -Wings of silver, powerfully whirring, swept his soul onwards to another -place--toward Home. - -And the two worlds intermingled oddly. These little separate "outer -things" going to and fro so busily became as symbols more or less vital, -more or less transparent. They varied according to their simplicity. Some -of them were channels that led directly where he was going; others, -again, had lost all connection with their vital source and center of -existence. To the former belonged the sailors, children, the tired birds -that rested on the ship as they journeyed northwards, swallows, doves, -and little travelers with breasts of spotted yellow that nested in the -rigging; even, in a measure, the gentle, brown-eyed priest; but to the -latter, the noisy, vulgar, beer-drinking tourists, and, especially, -the fur-merchant.... Stahl, interpreter and intermediary, hovered -between--incarnate compromise. - -Escaping from everybody, at length, he made his way into the bows; there, -covered by the stars, he waited. And the thing he waited for--he felt it -coming over him with a kind of massive sensation as little local as heat -or cold--was that disentanglement of a part of his personality from the -rest against which Stahl had warned him. That portion of his complex -personality in which resided desire and longing, matured during these -many years of poignant nostalgia, was now slowly and deliberately -loosening out from the parent center. It was the vehicle of his _Urwelt_ -yearnings; and the _Urwelt_ was about to draw it forth. The Call -was on its way. - -Hereabouts, then, near the Isles of Greece, lay a channel to the Earth's -far youth, a channel for some reason still unclosed. His companions -knew it; he, too, had half divined it. The increased psychic activity of -all three as they approached Greece seemed explained. The sign--would -it be through hearing, sight, or touch?--would shortly come that should -convince. - -That very afternoon Stahl had said--"Greece will betray them," and -he had asked: "Their true form and type?" And for answer the old man -did an expressive thing, far more convincing than words: he bent -forwards and downwards. He made as though to move a moment on all fours. - -O'Malley remembered the brief and vital scene now. The word, however, -persistently refused to come into his mind. Because the word was really -inadequate, describing but partially a form and outline symbolical of far -more,--a measure of Nature and Deity alike. - -And so, as a man dreading the entrance to a great adventure that he -yet desires, the Irishman waited there alone beneath the cloud of -night.... Soft threads of star-gold, trailing the sea, wove with the -darkness a veil that hid from his eyes the world of crude effects. All -memory of the casual realities of modern life that so distressed his -soul, fled far away. The archetypal world, soul of the Earth, swam close -about him, enormous and utterly simple. He seemed alone in some hollow of -the night which Time had overlooked, and where the powers of sea and -air held him in the stretch of their gigantic, changeless hands. In this -hollow lay the entrance to the channel down which he presently might -flash back to that primal Garden of the Earth's first beauty--her Golden -Age... down which, at any rate, the authoritative Call he awaited was -to come.... "Oh! what a power has white simplicity!" - -Wings from the past, serene and tranquil, bore him toward this ancient -peace where echoes of life's brazen clash today could never enter. -Ages before Greece, of course, it had flourished, yet Greece had caught -some flying remnant ere it left the world of men, and for a period had -striven to renew its life, though by poetry but half believed. Over the -vales and hills of Hellas this mood had lingered bravely for a while, -then passed away forever ... and those who dreamed of its remembrance -remain homeless and lonely, seeking it ever again in vain, lost citizens, -rejected by the cycles of vainer life and action that succeeded. - -The Spirit of the Earth, yes, whispered in his ears as he waited covered -by the night and stars. She called him, as though across all the forests -on her breast the long sweet winds went whispering his name. Lying -there upon the coils of thick and tarry rope, the _Urwelt_ caught him -back with her splendid passion. Currents of Earth life, quasi-deific, -gentle as the hands of little children, tugged softly at this loosening -portion of his Self, urging his very lips, as it were, once more to the -mighty Mother's breasts. Again he saw those cloud-like shapes careering -over long, bare hills ... and almost knew himself among them as they -raced with streaming winds ... free, ancient comrades among whom he was -no longer alien and outcast, including his two companions of the steamer. -The early memory of the Earth became his own; as a part of her, he -shared it too. - -The _Urwelt_ closed magnificently about him. Vast shapes of power and -beauty, other than human, once his comrades thus, but since withdrawn -because denied by a pettier age, moved up, huge and dim, across the -sham barriers of time and space, singing the great Earth-Song of welcome -in his ears. The whisper grew awfully.... The Spirit of the Earth -flew close and called upon him with a shout...! - -Then, out of this amazing reverie, he woke abruptly to the consciousness -that some one was approaching him stealthily, yet with speed, through the -darkness. With a start he sat up, peering about him. There was dew on his -clothes and hair. The stars, he saw, had shifted their positions. - -He heard the surge of the water from the vessel's bows below. The -line of the shore lay close on either side. Overhead he saw the black -threads of rigging, quivering with the movement of the ship; the swaying -mast-head light; the dim, round funnels; the confused shadows where -the boats swung--and nearer, moving between the ropes and windlasses, -this hurrying figure whose approach had disturbed him in his gorgeous -dream. - -And O'Malley divined at once that, though in one sense a portion of his -dream, it belonged outwardly to the same world as this long dark steamer -that trailed after him across the sea. A piece of his vision, as it -were, had broken off and remained in the cruder world wherein his body -lay upon these tarry ropes. The boy came up and stood a moment by -his side in silence, then, stooping to the level of his head, he spoke:-- - -"Come," he said in low tones of joy; "come! We wait long for you -already!" - -The words, like music, floated over the sea, as O'Malley took the -outstretched hand and suffered himself to be led quickly toward the -lower deck. He walked at first as in a dream continued after waking; -more than once it seemed as though they stepped together from the -boards and moved through space toward the line of peaked hills that -fringed the steamer's course so close. For through the salt night air ran -a perfume that suggested flowers, earth, and woods, and there seemed -no break in the platforms of darkness that knit sea and shore to the very -substance of the vessel. - - - - -XXI - - -The lights in the saloon were out, the smoking-room empty, the -passengers in bed. The ship seemed entirely deserted. Only, on the -bridge, the shadow of the first officer paced quietly to and fro. Then, -suddenly, as they approached the stern, O'Malley discerned anther -figure, huge and motionless, against the background of phosphorescent -foam; and at the first glance it was exactly as though he had detached -from the background of his mind one of those Flying Outlines upon -the hills--and caught it there, arrested visibly at last. - -He moved along, fairly sure of himself, yet with a tumult of confused -sensations, as if consciousness were transferring itself now more rapidly -to that portion of him which sought to escape. - -Leaning forward, in a stooping posture over the bulwarks, wrapped in the -flowing cape he sometimes wore, the man's back and shoulders married so -intimately with the night that it was hard to determine the dividing line -between the two. So much more of the deck behind him, and of the sky -immediately beyond his neck, was obliterated than by any possible human -outline. Whether owing to obliquity of disturbed vision, tricks of -shadow, or movement of the vessel between the stars and foam, the -Irishman saw these singular emanations spread about him into space. He -saw them this time directly. And more than ever before they seemed in -some way right and comely--true. They were in no sense monstrous; they -reported beauty, though a beauty cloaked in power. - -And, watching him, O'Malley felt that this loosening portion of himself, -as once before in the little cabin, likewise began to grow and spread. -Within some ancient fold of the Earth's dream-consciousness they both lay -caught. In some mighty Dream of her planetary Spirit, dim, immense, -slow-moving, they played their parts of wonder. Already they lay close -enough to share the currents of her subconscious activities. And the -dream, as she turned in her vast, spatial sleep, was a dream of a time -long gone. - -Here, amid the loneliness of deserted deck and night, this illusion of -bulk was more than ever before outwardly impressive, and as he yielded -to the persuasion of the boy's hand, he was conscious of a sudden wild -inclination to use his own arms and legs in a way he had never before -known or dreamed of, yet that seemed curiously familiar. The balance -and adjustment of his physical frame sought to shift and alter; neck and -shoulders, as it were, urged forward; there came a singular pricking in -the loins, a rising of the back, a thrusting up and outwards of the -chest. He felt that something grew behind him with a power that sought to -impel or drive him in advance and out across the world at a terrific -gait; and the hearing of his ears became of a sudden intensely acute. -While his body moved ordinarily, he knew that a part of him that was not -body moved--otherwise, that he neither walked, ran, nor stepped upon -two feet, but--galloped. The motion proclaimed him kin with the flying -shapes upon the hills. At the heart of this portion which sought to -detach itself from his central personality--which, indeed, seemed -already half escaped--he cantered. - -The experience lasted but a second--this swift, free motion of the -escaping Double--then passed away like those flashes of memory that rise -and vanish again before they can be seized for examination. He shook -himself free of the unaccountable obsession, and with the effort of -returning to the actual present, the passing-outwards was temporarily -checked. And it was then, just as he held himself in hand again, that -glancing sideways, he became aware that the boy beside him had, like -his parent, also changed--grown large and shadowy with a similar -suggestion of another splendid outline. The extension already half -accomplished in himself and fully accomplished in the father, was in -process of accomplishment in the smaller figure of the son. Clothed in -the emerged true shape of their inner being they slowly revealed -themselves. It was as bewildering as watching death, and as stern and -beautiful. - -For the boy, still holding his hand, loped along beside him as though -the projection that emanated from him, grown almost physical, were -somehow difficult to manage. - -In the moment of nearer, smaller consciousness that yet remained to -him, O'Malley recalled the significant pantomime of Dr. Stahl two days -before in the cabin. It came with a rush of fire. The warning operated; -his caution instantly worked. He dropped the hand, let the clinging -fingers slip from his own, overcome by something that appalled. For -this, surely, was the inner catastrophe that he dreaded, the radical -internal dislocation of his personality that involved--death. The thing -that had happened, or was happening to these other two, was on the -edge of fulfillment in himself--before he was either ready or had -decided to accept it. - -At any rate he hesitated; and the hesitation, shifting his center of -consciousness back into his brain, checked and saved him. A confused -sense of forces settling back within himself followed; a kind of rush and -scuttle of moods and powers: and he remained temporarily master of -his being, recovering balance and command. Twice already--in that -cabin-scene, as also on the deck when Stahl had seized him--the -moment had come close. Now, again, had he kept hold of the boy's -grasp, that inner transformation, which should later become externalized, -must have completed itself. - -"No, no!" he tried to cry aloud, "for I'm not yet ready!" But his voice -rose scarcely above a whisper. The decision of his will, however, had -produced the desired result. The "illusion," so strangely born, had -passed, at any rate for the time. He knew once more the glory of the -steadfast stars, realized that he walked normally upon a steamer's deck, -heard with welcome the surge of the sea below, and felt the peace of this -calm southern night as they coasted with two hundred sleeping tourists -between the islands and the Grecian mainland.... He remembered the -fur-merchant, the Armenian priest, the Canadian drummer.... - -It seemed his feet half tripped, or at least that he put out a hand to -steady himself against the ship's long roll, for the pair of them moved -up to the big man's side with a curious, rushing motion that brought -them all together with a mild collision. And the boy laughed merrily, -his laughter like singing half completed. O'Malley remembers the little -detail, because it serves to show that he was yet still in a state of -intensified consciousness, far above the normal level. It was still "like -walking in my sleep or acting out some splendid dream," as he put it -in his written version. "Half out of my body, if you like, though in no -sense of the words at all half out of my mind!" - - - - -XXII - - -What followed he relates with passion, half confused. Without speaking -the big Russian turned his head by way of welcome, and O'Malley saw that -the proportions of it were magnificent like a fragment of the night and -sky. Though too dark to read the actual expression in the eyes, he -detected their gleam of joy and splendor. The whole presentment of the -man was impressive beyond any words that he could find. Massive, yet -charged with swift and alert vitality, he reared there through the night, -his inner self now toweringly manifested. At any other time, and without -the preparation already undergone, the sight might almost have terrified; -now it only uplifted. For in similar fashion, though lesser in degree, -because the mold was smaller, and hesitation checked it, this very -transformation had been going forward within himself. - -The three of them leaned there upon the rails, rails oddly dwindled -now to the size of a toy steamer, while thus the spirit of the dreaming -Earth swam round and through them, awful in power, yet at the same -time gentle, winning, seductive as wild flowers in the spring. And it was -this delicate, hair-like touch of delight, magical with a supreme and -utterly simple innocence, that made the grandeur of the whole experience -still easily manageable, and terror in it all unknown. - -The Irishman stood on the outside, toward the vessel's stern, next -him the father, beyond, the boy. They touched. A current like a river in -flood swept through all three. - -He, too, was caught within those visible extensions of their -personalities; all again, caught within the consciousness of the Earth. -Across the sea they gazed together in silence--waiting. - -It was the Oro passage, where the mainland hills on the west and the Isle -of Tenos on the east draw close together, and the steamer passes for -several miles so near to Greece that the boom of surf upon the shore is -audible. That night, however, the sea lay too still for surf; it -whispered softly in its sleep; and in its sleep, too, listened. They -heard its multitudinous rush of voices as the surge below raced by--a -giant frieze in which the phosphorescence painted dancing forms and -palely luminous faces. Unsubstantial shapes of foam held hands in -continuous array below the waves, lit by soft-sea-lanterns strung -together along the steamer's sides. - -Yet it was not these glimmering shapes the three of them watched, thus -intently silent. The lens of yearning focused not in sight. Down the -great channel at whose opening they stood, leading straight to the -Earth's old central heart, the message of communion would not be a -visual one. The sensitive fringe of their stretched personalities, -contacting thus actually the consciousness of the planet-soul, would -quiver to a reaction of another kind. This point of union, already -affected, would presently report itself, unmistakably, yet not to the -eyes. The increased acuteness of the Irishman's hearing--a kind of -interior hearing--quickly supplied the key. It was that all -three--listened. - -Some primitive sound of Earth would presently vibrate through their -extended beings with an authoritative sweet thunder not to be denied. -By a Voice, a Call, the Earth would tell them that she heard; that -lovingly she was aware of their presence in her heart. She would call -them, with the voice of _one of their own kind_. - -How strange it all was! Enormous in conception, enormous in distance, -scope, stretch! Yet so tiny, intimate, sweet! And this vast splendor was -to report itself by one of the insignificant little channels by which -men, locked in cramped physical bodies, interpret the giant universe--a -trivial sense-impression! That so terrible a communication could reach -the soul via the quivering of a wee material nerve was on a par with that -other grave splendor--that God can exist in the heart of a child. - -Thus, dimly, yet with an authority that shakes the soul, may little -human hearts divine the Immensities that travel with a thunder of great -glory close about their daily life. Through regions of their subliminal -consciousness, which transcends the restricted physical expression of it -called personality as the moisture of the world transcends a drop of -water, deific presences pass grandly to and fro. - -For here, to this wild-hearted Irishman with the forbidden strain of -the _Urmensch_ in his blood, came the sharp and instant revelation that -the Consciousness is not contained skin-tight around the body. It spread -enormously about him, remote, extended; and in some distant tract of -it this strange occurrence took place. The idea of distance and -extension, of course, were merely intellectual concepts, like that of -Time. For what happened, happened near and close, beside, _within_ his -actual physical person. That physical person, with its brain, however, he -realized, was but a fragment of his total Self. A broken piece of the -occurrence filtered through from beyond and fell upon the deck at his -feet. The rest he divined, seeing it whole. Only the little bit, however, -has he found the language to describe. - -And that for which all three listened was already on the way. Forever -it had been "happening," yet only reached them now because they were -ready and open to it. Events upon the physical plane, he grasped, -represented the last feeble expression of things that had happened -interiorly with a vaster power long ago--and are ever happening still. -This Sound they listened for, coming from the Spirit of the Earth, lay -ever close to men's ears, divinely sweet and splendid. It seemed born -somewhere in the heart of the blue gloom that draped the hills of Greece. -Thence, across the peaked mountains, stretched the immense pipe of -starry darkness that carried it toward them as along a channel. Made -possible of approach by the ancient passion of beauty that Greece once -knew, it ran down upon the world into their hearts, direct from the -Being of the Earth. - -With a sudden rush, it grew nearer, swelling with a draught of sound -that sucked whole spaces of sky and sea and stars with it. It emerged. -They heard, all three. - -Above the pulse and tremble of the steamer's engines, above the -surge and gurgle of the sea, a cry swept toward them from the shore. -Long-drawn, sweetly-penetrating, yet with some strident accent of power -and command, this voice of Earth rushed upon them over the quiet -water--then died away again among the mountains and the night. Its -passage through the sky was torrential. The whole pouring flood of it -dipped back with abrupt swiftness into silence. The Irishman understood -that but an echo of its main volume had come through. - -A deep, convulsive movement ran over the great body at his side, and -at once communicated itself to the boy beyond. Father and son -straightened up abruptly as though the same force lifted both; then -stretched down and forwards over the bulwarks. They seemed to shake -themselves free of something. Neither spoke. Something utterly -overwhelming lay in that moment. For the cry was at once of enchanting -sweetness, yet with a deep and dreadful authority that overpowered. It -invited the very soul. - -A moment of silence followed, and the cry was then repeated, thinner, -fainter, already further away. It seemed withdrawn, sunk more deeply -into the night, higher up, too, floating away northwards into remoter -vales and glens that lay beyond the shore-line. Though still a single -cry, there were distinct breaks of utterance in it this time, as of -words. It was, of a kind--speech: a Message, a Summons, a Command that -somehow held entreaty at its heart. - -And this time the appeal in it was irresistible. Father and son started -forwards as though deliberately pulled; while from himself shot outwards -that loosening portion of his being that all the evening had sought -release. The vehicle of his yearnings, passionately summoned, leaped to -the ancient call of the Earth's eternally young life. This vital essence -of his personality, volatile as air and fierce as lightning, flashed -outwards from its hidden prison where it lay choked and smothered by the -weights and measures of modern life. For the beauty and splendor of that -far voice wrung his very heart and set it free. He knew a quasi-physical -wrench of detachment. A wild and tameless glory fused the fastenings -of ages. - -Only the motionless solidity of the great figure beside him prevented -somehow the complete escape, and made him understand that the Call -just then was not for all three of them, especially not for himself. The -parent rose beside him, massive and stable, secure as the hills which -were his true home, and the boy broke suddenly into happy speech which -was wild and singing. - -He looked up swiftly into his parent's steady visage. - -"Father!" he cried in tones that merged half with the wind, half with -the sea, "it is his voice! Chiron calls--!" His eyes shone like stars, -his young face was alight with joy and passion.--"Go, father, _you_, -or--" - -He stopped an instant, catching the Irishman's eyes upon his own -across the form between them. - -"--or you!" he added with a laughter of delight; "_you_ go!" - -The big figure straightened up, standing back a pace from the rails. -A low sound rolled from him that was like an echo of thunder among -hills. With slow, laborious distinctness it broke off into fragments that -were words, with great difficulty uttered, but with a final authority -that rendered them command. - -"No," O'Malley heard, "you--first. And--carry word--that we--are--on -the way." Staring out across the sea and sky he boomed it deeply. -"You--first. We--follow--!" And the speech seemed to flow from the entire -surface of his body rather than from the lips alone. The sea and air -mothered the syllables. Thus might the Night herself have spoken. - -_Chiron_! The word, with its clue of explanation, flamed about him -with a roar. Was this, then, the type of cosmic life to which his -companions, and himself with them, inwardly approximated...? - -The same instant, before O'Malley could move a muscle to prevent -it, the boy climbed the rails with an easy, vaulting motion that was -swift yet oddly spread, and dropped straight down into the sea. He fell; -and as he fell it was as if the passage through the air drew out a part -of him again like smoke. Whether it was due to the flying cloak, or to -some dim wizardry of the shadows, there grew over him an instantaneous -transformation of outline that was far more marked than anything before. -For as the steamer drew onwards, and the body thus passed in its downward -flight close beneath O'Malley's eyes, he saw that the boy was making the -first preparatory motions of swimming,--movements, however, that were not -the horizontal sweep of a pair of human arms, but rather the vertical -strokes of a swimming animal. He pawed the air. - -The surprise of the whole unexpected thing came upon him with a crash -that brought him back effectually again into himself. That part of him, -already half emerged in similar escape, now flashed back sheath-like -within him. The inner catastrophe he dreaded while desiring it, had -not yet completed itself. - -He heard no splash, for the ship was high out of the water, and the -place where the body met the sea already lay far astern; but when the -momentary arrest of his faculties had passed and he found his voice to -cry for help, the father turned upon him like a lion and clapped a great, -encompassing hand upon his mouth. - -"Quiet!" his deep voice boomed. "It is well--and he--is--safe." - -And across the huge and simple visage ran an expression of such supreme -happiness, while in his act and gesture lay such convincing power, that -the Irishman felt himself overborne and forced to acknowledge another -standard of authority that somehow made the whole thing right. To cry -"man overboard," to stop the ship, throw life-buoys and the rest, was not -only unnecessary, but foolish. The boy was safe; it was well with him; he -was not "lost"... - -"See," said the parent's deep voice, breaking in upon his thoughts as -he drew him to one side with a certain vehemence, "See!" - -He pointed downwards. And there, between them, half in the scuppers, -against their very feet, lay the huddled body upon the deck, the -arms outstretched, the face turned upwards to the stars. - - * * * * * - -The bewilderment that followed was like the confusion which exists -between two states of consciousness when the mind passes from sleep -to waking, or _vice versa_. O'Malley lost that power of attention which -enables a man to concentrate on details sufficiently to recall their -exact sequence afterwards with certainty. - -Two things, however, stood out and he tells them briefly enough: first, -that the joy upon the father's face rendered an offer of sympathy -ludicrous; secondly, that Dr. Stahl was again upon the scene with a -promptness which proved him to have been close at hand all the time. - -It was between two and three in the morning, the rest of the passengers -asleep still, but Captain Burgenfelder and the first officer appeared -soon after and an orderly record of the affair was drawn up formally. The -depositions of the father and of himself were duly taken down in -writing, witnessed, and all the rest. - -The scene in the doctor's cabin remains vividly in his mind: the huge -Russian standing by the door--for he refused a seat--incongruously -smiling in contrast to the general gravity, his mind obviously brought -by an effort of concentration to each question; the others seated round -the desk some distance away, leaving him in a space by himself; the -scratching of the doctor's pointed pen; the still, young outline -underneath the canvas all through the long pantomime, lying upon a couch -at the back where the shadows gathered thickly. And then the gust of -fresh wind that came in with a little song as they opened the door at -the end, and saw the crimson dawn reflected in the dewy, shining boards -of the deck. The father, throwing the Irishman a significant and curious -glance, was out to join it on the instant. - -Syncope, produced by excitement, cause unknown, was the scientific -verdict, and an immediate burial at sea the parent's wish. As the sun -rose over the highlands of Asia Minor it was carried into effect. - -But the father's eyes followed not the drop. They gazed with rapt, -intent expression in another direction where the shafts of sunrise sped -across the sea toward the glens and dales of distant Pelion. At the sound -of the plunge he did not even turn his eyes. He pointed, gathering -O'Malley somehow into the gesture, across the AEgean Sea to where the -shores of north-western Arcadia lay below the horizon, raised his arms -with a huge sweep of welcome to the brightening sky, then turned and -went below without a single word. - -For a few minutes, puzzled and perhaps a little awed, the group of -sailors and ship's officers remained standing with bared heads, then -disappeared silently in their turn, leaving the decks to the sunrise and -the wind. - - - - -XXIII - - -But O'Malley did not immediately return to his own cabin; he yielded to -Dr. Stahl's persuasion and dropped into the armchair he had already -occupied more than once, watching his companion's preparations with the -lamp and coffeepot. - -With his eyes, that is, he watched, staring, as men say, absent-mindedly; -for the fact was, only a little bit of him hovered there about his -weary physical frame. The rest of him was off somewhere else across the -threshold--subliminal: below, with the Russian, beyond with the -traveling spirit of the boy; but the major portion, out deep in space, -reclaimed by the Earth. - -So, at least, it felt; for the circulation of blood in his brain ran low -and physical sensation there was almost none. The driving impulse upon -the outlying tracts of consciousness usually submerged had been -tremendous. - -"That time," he heard Stahl saying in an oddly distant voice from -across the cabin, "you were nearly--out--" - -"You heard? You saw it all?" he murmured as in half-sleep. For it was -an effort to focus his mind even upon simple words. - -The reply he hardly caught, though he felt the significant stare of the -man's eye upon him and divined the shaking of his head. His life still -pulsed and throbbed far away outside his normal self. Complete return -was difficult. He felt all over: with the wind and hills and sea, all his -little personal sensations tucked away and absorbed into Nature. In the -Earth he lay, pervading her whole surface, still sharing her vaster life. -With her he moved, as with a greater, higher, and more harmonious -creation than himself. In large measure the cosmic instincts still swept -these quickened fringes of his deep subconscious personality. - -"You know them now for what they are," he heard the doctor saying at the -end of much else he had entirely missed. "The father will be the next to -go, and then--yourself. I warn you before it is too late. Beware! -And--resist!" - -His thoughts, and with them those subtle energies of the soul that are -the vehicles of thought, followed where the boy had gone. Deep streams of -longing swept him. The journey of that spirit, so singularly released, -drew half his forces after it. Thither the bereaved parent and himself -were also bound; and the lonely incompleteness of his life lay wholly now -explained. That cry within the dawn, though actually it had been calling -always, had at last reached him; hitherto he had caught only -misinterpreted echoes of it. From the narrow body it had called him -forth. Another moment and he would have known complete emancipation; and -never could he forget that glorious sensation as the vital essence tasted -half release. Next time the process should complete itself, and he -would--go! - -"Drink this," he heard abruptly in Stahl's grating voice, and saw him -cross the cabin with a cup of steaming coffee. "Concentrate your mind -now upon the things about you here. Return to the present. And tell me, -too, if you can bring yourself to do so," he added, stooping over -him with the cup, "a little of what you experienced. The return, I know, -is pain. But try--try--" - -"Like a little bit of death, yes," murmured the Irishman. "I feel caught -again and caged--small." He could have wept. This ugly little life! - -"Because you've tasted a moment of genuine cosmic consciousness and now -you feel the limitations of normal personality," Stahl added, more -soothingly. He sat down beside him and sipped his own coffee. - -"Dispersed about the whole earth I felt, deliciously extended and -alive," O'Malley whispered with a faint shiver as he glanced about the -little cabin, noticing the small windows and shut door. "Upholstery" -oppressed him. "Now I'm back in prison again." - -There was silence for a moment. Then presently the doctor spoke, as -though he thought aloud, expecting no reply. - -"All great emotions," he said in lowered tones, "tap the extensions of -the personality we now call subconscious, and a man in anger, in love, in -ecstasy of any kind is greater than he knows. But to you has come, -perhaps, the greatest form of all--a definite and instant merging with -the being of the Earth herself. You reached the point where you _felt_ -the spirit of the planet's life. You almost crossed the threshold--your -extension edged into her own. She bruised you, and you knew--" - -"'Bruised'?" he asked, startled at the singular expression into closer -hearing. - -"We are not 'aware' of our interior," he answered, smiling a little, -"until something goes wrong and the attention is focused. A keen -sensation--pain--and you become aware. Subconscious processes then -become consciously recognized. I bruise your lung for instance; you -become conscious of that lung for the first time, and feel it. You gather -it up from the general subconscious background into acute personal -consciousness. Similarly, a word or mood may sting and stimulate some -phase of your consciousness usually too remote to be recognized. Last -night--regions of your extended Self, too distant for most men to realize -their existence at all, contacted the consciousness of the Earth herself. -She bruised you, and _via_ that bruise caught you up into her greater -Self. You experienced a genuine cosmic reaction." - -O'Malley listened, though hardly to the actual words. Behind the -speech, which was in difficult German for one thing, his mind heard -the rushing past of this man's ideas. They moved together along the -same stream of thought, and the Irishman knew that what he thus heard -was true, at any rate, for himself. And at the same time he recognized -with admiration the skill with which this scientific mystic of a -_Schiffsarzt_ sought to lead him back into the safer regions of his -normal state. Stahl did not now oppose or deny. Catching the wave of the -Celt's experience, he let his thought run sympathetically with it, -alongside, as it were, guiding gently and insinuatingly down to earth -again. - -And the result justified this cunning wisdom; O'Malley returned to -the common world by degrees. For it was enchanting to find his amazing -adventure explained even in this partial, speculative way. Who else -among his acquaintances would have listened at all, much less admitted -its possibility? - -"But, why in particular _me_?" he asked. "Can't everybody know these -cosmic reactions you speak of?" It was his intellect that asked the -foolish question. His whole Self knew the answer beforehand. - -"Because," replied the doctor, tapping his saucer to emphasize each -word, "in some way you have retained an almost unbelievable simplicity -of heart--an innocence singularly undefiled--a sort of primal, -spontaneous innocence that has kept you clean and open. I venture even to -suggest that shame, as most men know it, has never come to you at all." - -The words sank down into him. Passing the intellect that would have -criticized, they nested deep within where the intuition knew them true. -Behind the clumsy language that is, he caught the thought. - -"As if I were a saint!" he laughed faintly. - -Stahl shook his head. "Rather, because you live detached," he replied, -"and have never identified your Self with the rubbish of life. The -channels in you are still open to these tides of larger existence. I wish -I had your courage." - -"While others--?" - -The German hesitated a moment. "Most men," he said, choosing his words -with evident care, "are too grossly organized to be aware that these -reactions of a wider consciousness can be possible at all. Their minute -normal Self they mistake for the whole, hence denying even the -experiences of others. 'Our actual personality may be something -considerably unlike that conception of it which is based on our present -terrestrial consciousness--a form of consciousness suited to, and -developed by, our temporary existence here, _but not necessarily more -than a fraction of our total self_. It is quite credible that our entire -personality is never terrestrially manifest.'" Obviously he quoted. The -Irishman had read the words somewhere. He came back more and more into -the world--correlated, that is, the subconscious with the conscious. - -"Yet consciousness apart from the brain is inconceivable," he interposed, -more to hear the reply than to express a conviction. - -Whether Stahl divined his intention or not, he gave no sign. - -"'We cannot say with any security that the stuff called brain is the -only conceivable machinery which mind and consciousness are able to -utilize: though it is true that we know no other.'" The last phrase he -repeated: "'though it is true that we know no other.'" - -O'Malley sank deeper into his chair, making no reply. His mind clutched -at the words "too grossly organized," and his thoughts ran back for a -moment to his daily life in London. He pictured his friends and -acquaintances there; the men at his club, at dinner parties, in the -parks, at theatres; he heard their talk--shooting--destruction of -exquisite life; horses, politics, women, and the rest; yet good, honest, -lovable fellows all. But how did they breathe in so small a world at all? -Practical-minded specimens of the greatest civilization ever known! He -recalled the heavy, dazed expression on the faces of one or two to whom -he had sometimes dared to speak of those wider realms that were so -familiar to himself.... - -"'Though it is true that we know no other,'" he heard Stahl repeating -slowly as he looked down into his cup and stirred the dregs. - -Then, suddenly, the doctor rose and came over to his side. His eyes -twinkled, and he rubbed his hands vigorously together as he spoke. He -laughed. - -"For instance, I have no longer now the consciousness of that coffee -I have just swallowed," he exclaimed, "yet, if it disagreed with me, my -consciousness of it would return." - -"The abnormal states you mean are a symptom of disorder then?" the -Irishman asked, following the analogy. - -"At present, yes," was the reply, "and will remain so until their -correlation with the smaller conscious Self is better understood. These -belligerent Powers of the larger Consciousness are apt to overwhelm as -yet. That time, perhaps, is coming. Already a few here and there have -guessed that the states we call hysteria and insanity, conditions of -trance, hypnotism, and the like, are not too satisfactorily explained." -He peered down at his companion. "If I could study your Self at close -quarters for a few years," he added significantly, "and under various -conditions, I might teach the world!" - -"Thank you!" cried the Irishman, now wholly returned into his ordinary -self. He could think of nothing else to say, yet he meant the words and -gave them vital meaning. He moved across to another chair. Lighting a -cigarette, he puffed out clouds of smoke. He did not desire to be caught -again beneath this man's microscope. And in his mind he had a sudden -picture of the speculative and experimenting doctor being "requested to -sever his connection" with the great Hospital for the sake of the -latter's reputation. But Stahl, in no way offended, was following his own -thoughts aloud, half speaking to himself. - -"... For a being organized as you are, more active in the outlying -tracts of consciousness than in the centers lying nearer home,--a being -like yourself, I say, might become aware of Other Life and other -personalities even more advanced and highly organized than that of the -Earth." - -A strange excitement came upon him, making his eyes shine. He walked to -and fro, O'Malley watching him, a touch of alarm mingled with his -interest. - -"And to think of the great majority that denies because they are--dead!" -he cried. "Smothered! Undivining! Living in that uninspired fragment -which they deem the whole! Ah, my friend,"--and he came abruptly -nearer--"the pathos, the comedy, the pert self-sufficiency of their dull -pride, the crass stupidity and littleness of their denials, in the eyes -of those like ourselves who have actually known the passion of the larger -experience--! For all this modern talk about a Subliminal Self is woven -round a profoundly significant truth, a truth newly discovered and only -just beginning to be understood. We are much greater than we know, and -there is a vast subconscious part of us. But, what is more important -still, there is a super-consciousness as well. The former represents -what the race has discarded; it is past; but the latter stands for what -it reaches out to in the future. The perfect man you dream of perhaps is -he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast -amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value -and will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and -waiting. But it is the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not -the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriously wait -upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism, and the rest." - -"One leads, though, to the other," interrupted O'Malley quickly. "It -is merely a question of the swing of the pendulum?" - -"Possibly," was the laconic reply. - -"They join hands, I mean, behind my back, as it were." - -"Possibly." - -"This stranger, then, may really lead me forward and not back?" - -"Possibly," again was all the answer that he got. - -For Stahl had stopped short, as though suddenly aware that he had -said too much, betraying himself in the sudden rush of interest and -excitement. The face for a moment had seemed quite young, but now -the flush faded, and the light died out from his eyes. O'Malley never -understood how the change came about so quickly, for in a moment, -it seemed, the doctor was calm again, quietly lighting one of his black -cigars over by the desk, peering at him half quizzingly, half mockingly -through the smoke. - -"So I urge you again," he was saying, as though the rest had been some -interlude that the Irishman had half imagined, "to proceed with the -caution of this sane majority, the caution that makes for safety. Your -friend, as I have already suggested to you, is a direct expression of the -cosmic life of the earth. Perhaps, you have guessed by now, the -particular type and form. Do not submit your inner life too completely to -his guidance. Contain your Self--and resist--while it is yet possible." - -And while he sat on there, sipping hot coffee, half listening to the -words that warned of danger while at the same time they cunningly -urged him forwards, it seemed that the dreams of childhood revived in -him with a power that obliterated this present day--the childhood, -however, not of his mere body, but of his spirit, when the world herself -was young.... He, too, had dwelt in Arcady, known the free life of -splendor and simplicity in some Saturnian Reign; for now this dream, -but half remembered, half believed, though eternally yearned for--dream -of a Golden Age untouched by Time, still there, still accessible, -still inhabited, was actually coming true. - -It surely was that old Garden of innocence and joy where the soul, -while all unvexed by a sham and superficial civilization of the mind, -might yet know growth--a realm half divined by saints and poets, but -to the gross majority forgotten or denied. - -The Simple Life! This new interpretation of it at first overwhelmed. -The eyes of his soul turned wild with glory; the passion that o'er-runs -the world in desolate places was his; his, too, the strength of rushing -rivers that coursed their parent's being. He shared the terror of the -mountains and the singing of the sweet Spring rains. The spread wonder -of the woods of the world lay imprisoned and explained in the daily -hurry of his very blood. He understood, because he felt, the power of -the ocean tides; and, flitting to and fro through the tenderer regions of -his extended Self, danced the fragrance of all the wild flowers that ever -blew. That strange allegory of man, the microcosm, and earth, the -macrocosm, became a sudden blazing reality. The feverish distress, -unrest, and vanity of modern life was due to the distance men had -traveled from the soul of the world, away from large simplicity into the -pettier state they deemed so proudly progress. - -Out of the transliminal depths of this newly awakened Consciousness -rose the pelt and thunder of these magical and enormous cosmic -sensations--the pulse and throb of the planetary life where his little -Self had fringed her own. Those untamed profundities in himself that -walked alone, companionless among modern men, suffering an eternal -nostalgia, at last knew the approach to satisfaction. For when the "inner -catastrophe" completed itself and escape should come--that transfer -of the conscious center across the threshold into this vaster region -stimulated by the Earth--all his longings would be housed at last like -homing birds, nested in the gentle places his yearnings all these years -had lovingly built for them--in a living Nature! The fever of modern -life, the torture and unrest of a false, external civilization that -trained the brain while it still left wars and baseness in the heart, -would drop from him like the symptoms of some fierce disease. The god of -speed and mechanism that ruled the world today, urging men at ninety -miles an hour to enter a Heaven where material gain was only a little -sublimated and not utterly denied, would pass for the nightmare that it -really was. In its place the cosmic life of undifferentiated simplicity, -clean and sweet and big, would hold his soul in the truly everlasting -arms. - -And that little German doctor, sitting yonder, enlightened yet afraid, -seeking an impossible compromise--Stahl could no more stop his going -than a fly could stop the rising of the Atlantic tides. - -Out of all this tumult of confused thought and feeling there rose then -the silver face of some forgotten and passionate loveliness. Apparently -it reached his lips, for he heard his own voice murmuring outside him -somewhere across the cabin:-- - -"The gods of Greece--and of the world--" - -Yet the instant words clothed it, the flashing glory went. The idea -plunged back out of sight--untranslatable in language. Thrilled and -sad, he lay back in his chair, watching the doctor and trying to focus -his mind upon what he was saying. But the lost idea still dived and -reared within him like a shining form, yet never showing more than -this radiant point above the surface. The passion and beauty of it...! -He tried no more to tie a label of modern words about its neck. He let -it swim and dive and leap within him uncaught. Only he understood -better why, close to Greece, his friends had betrayed their inner selves, -and why for the lesser of the two, whose bodily cage was not yet fully -clamped and barred by physical maturity, escape, or return rather, had -been possible, nay, had been inevitable. - - - - -XXIV - - -Stahl, he remembers, had been talking for a long time. The general sense -of what he said reached him, perhaps, but certainly not many of the -words. The doctor, it was clear, wished to coax from him the most -intimate description possible of his experience. He put things crudely -in order to challenge criticism, and thus to make his companion's reason -sit in judgment on his heart. If this visionary Celt would let his -intellect pass soberly and dissectingly upon these flaming states of -wider consciousness he had touched, the doctor would have data of real -value for his own purposes. - -But this discriminating analysis was precisely what the Irishman found -impossible. His soul was too "dispersed" to concentrate upon modern terms -and phrases. These in any case dealt only with the fragments of Self that -manifested through brain and body. The rest could be felt only, never -truly described. Since the beginning of the world such transcendental -experiences had never been translatable in the language of "common" -sense; and today, even, when a few daring minds sought a laborious -classification, straining the resources of psychology, the results were -little better than a rather enticing and suggestive confusion. - -In his written account, indeed, he gives no proper report of what Stahl -tried to say. A gaping hiatus appears in the manuscript, with only -asterisks and numbers that referred to pages of his tumbled notebooks. -Following these indications I came across the skeletons of ideas which -perhaps were the raw material, so to say, of these crude and speculative -statements that the German poured out at him across that cabin--blocks -of exaggeration he flung at him, in the hope of winning some critical -and intelligible response. Like the structure of some giant fairy-tale -they read--some toppling scaffolding that needed reduction in scale -before it could be focused for normal human sight. - -"Nature" was really alive for those who believed--and worshipped; for -worship was that state of consciousness which opens the sense and -provides the channel for this singular interior realization. In very -desolate and lonely places, unsmothered and unstained by men as they -exist today, such expressions of the Earth's stupendous, central vitality -were still possible.... The "Russian" himself was some such fragment, -some such cosmic being, strayed down among men in a form outwardly -human, and the Irishman had in his own wild, untamed heart those -same very tender and primitive possibilities which enabled him to know -and feel it. - -In the body, however, he was fenced off--without. Only by the -disentanglement of his primitive self from the modern development -which caged it, could he recover this strange lost Eden and taste in its -fullness the mother-life of the planetary consciousness which called him -back. This dissociation might be experienced temporarily as a subliminal -adventure; or permanently--in death. - -Here, it seemed, was a version of the profound mystical idea that a -man must lose his life to find it, and that the personal self must be -merged in a larger one to know peace--the incessant, burning nostalgia -that dwells in the heart of every religion known to men: escape from -the endless pain of futile personal ambitions and desires for external -things that are unquenchable because never possible of satisfaction. It -had never occurred to him before in so literal and simple a form. It -explained his sense of kinship with the earth and nature rather than -with men.... - -There followed, then, another note which the Irishman had also -omitted from his complete story as I found it--in this MS. that lay -among the dust and dinginess of the Paddington back-room like some -flaming gem in a refuse heap. It was brief but pregnant--the block of -another idea, Fechner's apparently, hurled at him by the little doctor. - -That, just as the body takes up the fact of the bruised lung into its -own general consciousness, lifting it thereby from the submerged, -unrealized state; and just as our human consciousness can be caught up -again as a part of the earth's; so, in turn, the Planet's own vast -personality is included in the collective consciousness of the entire -Universe--all steps and stages of advance to that final and august -Consciousnss of which they are fragments, projections, manifestations in -Time--GOD. - -And the immense conception, at any rate, gave him a curious, -flashing clue to that passionate inclusion which a higher form of -consciousness may feel for the countless lesser manifestations below it; -and so to that love for humanity as a whole that saviors feel.... - -Yet, out of all this deep flood of ideas and suggestions that somehow -poured about him from the mind of this self-contradictory German, -alternately scientist and mystic, O'Malley emerged with his own smaller -and vivid personal delight that he would presently himself--escape: -escape under the guidance of the big Russian into some remote corner -of his own extended Being, where he would enjoy a quasi-merging with -the Earth-life, and know subjectively at least the fruition of all his -yearnings. - -The doctor had phrased it once that a part of him fluid, etheric or -astral, malleable by desire, would escape and attain to this result. But, -after all, the separation of one portion of himself from the main -personality could only mean being conscious it: another part of it--in -a division usually submerged. - -As Stahl so crudely put it, the Earth had bruised him. He would know -in some little measure the tides of her own huge life, his longings, -loneliness, and nostalgia explained and satisfied. He would find that -fair old Garden. He might even know the lesser gods. - - * * * * * - -That afternoon at Smyrna the matter was officially reported, and so -officially done with. It caused little enough comment on the steamer. -The majority of the passengers had hardly noticed the boy at all, much -less his disappearance; and while many of them landed there for Ephesus, -still more left the ship next day at Constantinople. - -The big Russian, though he kept mostly to his own cabin, was closely -watched by the ship's officers, and O'Malley, too, realized that he was -under observation. But nothing happened; the emptied steamer pursued -her quiet way, and the Earth, unrealized by her teeming freight so busy -with their tiny personal aims, rushed forwards upon her glorious journey -through space. - -O'Malley alone realized her presence, aware that he rushed with her -amid a living universe. But he kept his new sensations to himself. The -remainder of the voyage, indeed, across the Black Sea _via_ Samsoun and -Trebizond, is hazy in his mind so far as practical details are concerned, -for he found himself in a dreamy state of deep peace and would sometimes -sit for hours in reverie, only reminded of the present by certain pricks -of annoyance from the outer world. He had returned, of course, to his own -stateroom, yet felt in such close sympathy with his companion that no -outward expression by way of confidence or explanation was necessary. In -their Subconsciousness they were together and at one. - -The pricks of annoyance came, as may be expected, chiefly from Dr. -Stahl, and took the form of variations of "I told you so." The man was -in a state of almost anger, caused half by disappointment, half by -unsatisfied curiosity. His cargo of oil and water would not mix, yet he -knew not which to throw overboard; here was another instance where -facts refused to tally with the beliefs dictated by sane reason; where -the dazzling speculations he played with threatened to win the day and -destroy the compromise his soul loved. - -The Irishman, however, did not resent his curiosity, though he made -no attempt to satisfy it. He allowed him to become authoritative and -professional, to treat him somewhat as a patient. What could it matter -to him, who in a few hours would land at Batoum and go off with his -guide and comrade to some place where--? The thought he could never -see completed in words, for he only knew that the fulfillment of the -adventure would take place--somewhere, somehow, somewhen--in that space -within the soul of which external space is but an image and a figure. -What takes place in the mind and heart are alone the true events; their -outward expression in the shifting and impermanent shapes of matter is -the least real thing in all the world. For him the experience would be -true, real, authoritative--fact in the deepest sense of the word. -Already he saw it "whole." - -Faith asks no travelers' questions--exact height of mountains, length -of rivers, distance from the sea, precise spelling of names, and so -forth. He felt--the quaint and striking simile is in the written -account--like a man hunting for a pillar-box in a strange city--absurdly -difficult to find, as though purposely concealed by the authorities amid -details of street and houses to which the eye is unaccustomed, yet really -close at hand all the time.... - -But at Trebizond, a few hours before Batoum, Dr. Stahl in his zealous -attentions went too far; for that evening he gave his "patient" a -sleeping-draught in his coffee that caused him to lie for twelve hours on -the cabin sofa, and when at length he woke toward noon, the Customs -officers had been aboard since nine o'clock, and most of the passengers -had already landed. - -Among them, leaving no message, the big Russian had also gone -ashore. And, though Stahl may have been actuated by the wisest and -kindest motives, he was not quite prepared for the novel experience with -which it provided him--namely, of hearing an angry Irishman saying -rapidly what he thought of him in a stream of eloquent language that -lasted nearly a quarter of an hour without a break! - - - - -XXV - - -Although Batoum is a small place, and the trains that leave it during -the day are few enough, O'Malley knew that to search for his friend by -the methods of the ordinary detective was useless. It would have been -also wrong. The man had gone deliberately, without attempting to say -good-bye--because, having come together in the real and inner sense, -real separation was not possible. The vital portion of their beings, -thought, feeling, and desire, were close and always would be. Their -bodies, busy at different points of the map among the casual realities -of external life, could make no change in that. And at the right moment -they would assuredly meet again to begin the promised journey. - -Thus, at least, in some fashion peculiarly his own, was the way the -Irishman felt; and this was why, after the first anger with his German -friend, he resigned himself patiently to the practical business he had in -hand. - -The little incident was characteristically revealing, and shows how -firmly rooted in his imaginative temperament was the belief, the -unalterable conviction rather, that his life operated upon an outer and -an inner plane simultaneously, the one ever reacting upon the other. It -was as if he were aware of two separate sets of faculties, subtly linked, -one carrying on the affairs of the physical man in the "practical" world, -the other dealing with the spiritual economy in the subconscious. To -attend to the latter alone was to be a useless dreamer among men, -unpractical, unbalanced; to neglect it wholly for the former was to be -crassly limited, but half alive; to combine the two in effective -co-operation was to achieve that high level of a successful personality, -which some perhaps term genius, some prophet, and others, saint. It -meant, at any rate, to have sources of inspiration within oneself. - -Thus he spent the day completing what was necessary for his simple -outfit, and put up for the night at one of the little hotels that spread -their tables invitingly upon the pavement, so that dinner may be enjoyed -in full view of one of the most picturesque streams of traffic it is -possible to see. - -The sultry, enervating heat of the day had passed and a cool breeze -came shorewards over the Black Sea. With a box of thin Russian -cigarettes before him he lingered over the golden Kakhetian wine and -watched the crowded street. Knowing enough of the language to bargain -smartly for his room, his pillows, sheets, and samovar, he yet could -scarcely compass conversation with the strangers about him. Of Russian -proper, besides, he heard little; there was a Babel of many tongues, -Armenian, Turkish, Georgian, explosive phrases of Swanetian, soft -gliding Persian words, and the sharp or guttural exclamations of the -big-voiced, giant fellows, all heavily armed, who belonged to the -bewildering tribes that dwelt among the mountains beyond. Occasionally -came a broken bit of French or German; but they strayed in, lost and -bizarre, as fragments from some distant or forgotten world. - -Down the pavement, jostling his elbows, strode the constant, gorgeous -procession of curious, wild, barbaric faces, bearded, with hooked -noses, flashing eyes, burkas flowing; cartridge-belts of silver and ivory -gleaming across chests in the glare of the electric light; bashliks of -white, black, and yellow wool upon the head, increasing the stature; -evil-looking Black Sea knives stuck in most belts, rifles swung across -great supple shoulders, long swords trailing; Turkish gypsies, dark and -furtive-eyed, walking softly in leather slippers--of endless and -fascinating variety, many colored and splendid, it all was. From time to -time a droschky with two horses, or a private carriage with three, -rattled noisily over the cobbles at a reckless pace, stopping with the -abruptness of a practiced skater; and officers with narrow belted waists -like those of women, their full-skirted cloaks reaching half-way down -high boots of shining leather, sprang out to pay the driver and take a -vacant table at his side; and once or twice a body of soldiers, several -hundred strong, singing the national songs with a full-throated vigor, -hoarse, wild, somehow half terrible, passed at a swinging gait away into -the darkness at the end of the street, the roar of their barbaric singing -dying away in the distance by the sea where the boom of waves just caught -it. - -And O'Malley loved it all, and "thrilled" as he watched and listened. -From his hidden self within something passed out and joined it. He felt -the wild pulse of energetic life that drove along with the tumult of it. -The savage, untamed soul in him leaped as he saw; the blood ran faster. -Sitting thus upon the bank of the hurrying stream, he knew himself -akin to the main body of the invisible current further out; it drew him -with it, and he experienced a quickening of all his impulses toward some -wild freedom that was mighty--clean--simple. - -Civilian dress was rare, and noticeable when it came. The shipping agents -wore black alpaca coats, white trousers, and modern hats of straw. A few -ship's officers in blue, with official caps gold-braided, passed in and -out like men without a wedding garment, as distressingly out of the -picture as tourists in check knickerbockers and nailed boots moving -through some dim cathedral aisle. O'Malley recognized one or two from -his own steamer, and turned his head the other way. It hurt. He caught -himself thinking, as he saw them, of Stock Exchanges, two-penny-tubes, -Belgravia dinner parties, private views, "small and earlies," musical -comedy, and all the rest of the dismal and meager program. These -harmless little modern uniforms were worse than ludicrous, for they -formed links with the glare and noise of the civilization he had left -behind, the smeared vulgarity of the big cities where men and women -live in their possessions, wasting life in that worship of external -detail they call "progress"... - -A well-known German voice crashed through his dream. - -"Already at the wine! These Caucasian vintages are good; they really -taste of grapes and earth and flowers. Yes, thanks, I'll join you for a -moment if I may. We only lie three days in port and are glad to get -ashore." - -O'Malley called for a second glass, and passed the cigarettes. - -"I prefer my black cigars, thank you," was the reply, lighting one. -"You push on tomorrow, I suppose? Kars, Tiflis, Erzerum, or somewhere -a little wilder in the mountains, eh?" - -"Toward the mountains, yes," the Irishman said. Dr. Stahl was the only -person he could possibly have allowed to sit next him at such a time. He -had quite forgiven him now, and though at first he felt no positive -welcome, the strange link between the two men quickly asserted itself and -welded them together in that odd harmony they knew in spite of all -differences. They could be silent together, too, without distress or -awkwardness, sure test that at least some portion of their personalities -fused. - -And for a long time they remained silent, watching the surge and -movement of the old, old types about them. They sipped the yellow -wine and smoked. The stars came out; the carriages grew less; from far -away floated a deep sonorous echo now and then of the soldiers singing -by their barracks. Sometimes a steamer hooted. Cossacks swung by. -Often some wild cry rang out from a side street. There were heavy, -unfamiliar perfumes in the air. Presently Stahl began talking about the -Revolution of a few years before and the scenes of violence he had -witnessed in these little streets, the shooting, barricades, bombs thrown -into passing carriages, Cossacks charging down the pavements with -swords drawn, shouting and howling. O'Malley listened with a part of -his mind at any rate. The rest of him was much further away.... He -was up among the mountain fastnesses. Already, it seemed, he knew the -secret places of the mist, the lair of every running wind.... - -Two tall mountain tribesmen swaggered past close to their table; the -thick grey burkas almost swept their glasses. They walked magnificently -with easy, flowing stride, straight from the hips. - -"The earth here," said O'Malley, taking advantage of a pause in the -other's chatter, "produces some splendid types. Look at those two; they -make one think of trees walking--blown along bodily before a wind." -He watched them with admiration as they swung off and disappeared -among the crowd. - -Dr. Stahl, glancing keenly at him, laughed a little. - -"Yes," he said; "brave, generous fellows too as a rule, who will shoot -you for a pistol that excites their envy, yet give their life to save one -of their savage dogs. They're still--natural," he added after a -moment's hesitation; "still unspoiled. They live close to Nature with a -vengeance. Up among the Ossetians on the high saddles you'll find true -Pagans who worship trees, sacrifice blood, and offer bread and salt to -the nature-deities." - -"Still?" asked O'Malley, sipping his wine. - -"Still," replied Stahl, following his example. - -Over the glasses' rims their eyes met. Both smiled, though neither -quite knew why. The Irishman, perhaps, was thinking of the little city -clerks he knew at home, pigeon-breasted, pale-faced, under-sized. One -of these big men, so full of rushing, vigorous life, would eat a dozen at -a sitting. - -"There's something here the rest of the world has lost," he murmured -to himself. But the doctor heard him. - -"You feel it?" he asked quickly, his eyes brightening. "The awful, -primitive beauty--?" - -"I feel--something, certainly," was the cautious answer. He could -not possibly have said more just then; yet it seemed as though he heard -far echoes of that voice that had been first borne to his ears across the -blue AEgean. In the gorges of these terrible mountains it surely sounded -still. These men must know it too. - -"The spell of this strange land will never leave you once you've felt -it," pursued the other quietly, his voice deepening. "Even in the towns -here--Tiflis, Kutais--I have felt it. Hereabouts is the cradle of the -human race, they say, and the people have not changed for thousands -of years. Some of them you'll find"--he hunted for a word, then said -with a curious, shrugging gesture, "terrific." - -"Ah--" said the Irishman, lighting a fresh cigarette from the dying -stump so clumsily that the trembling of the hand was noticeable. - -"And akin most likely," said Stahl, thrusting his face across the table -with a whispering tone, "to that--man--who--tempted you." - -O'Malley did not answer. He drank the liquid golden sunshine in his -glass; his eyes lifted to the stars that watched above the sea; between -the surge of human figures came a little wind from the grim, mysterious -Caucasus beyond. He turned all tender as a child, receiving as with a -shock of sudden strength and sweetness a thousand intimate messages from -the splendid mood of old Mother-Earth who here expressed herself in such -a potent breed of men and mountains. - -He heard the doctor's voice still speaking, as from a distance though:-- - -"For here they all grow with her. They do not fight her and resist. She -pours freely through them; there is no opposition. The channels still lie -open; ... and they share her life and power." - -"That beauty which the modern world has lost," repeated the other -to himself, lingering over the words, and wondering why they expressed -so little of what he really meant. - -"But which will never--_can_ never come again," Stahl completed the -sentence. There was a wistful, genuine sadness in his voice and eyes, and -the sympathy touched the inflammable Celt with fire. It was ever thus -with him. The little man opposite, with the ragged beard, and the bald, -domed head gleaming in the electric light, had laid a card upon the -table, showing a bit of his burning heart. The generous Irishman -responded like a child, laying himself bare. So hungry was he for -comprehension. - -"Men have everywhere else clothed her fair body with their smothering, -ugly clothing and their herded cities," he burst out, so loud that -the Armenian waiter sidled up, thinking he called for wine. "But here -she lies naked and unashamed, sweet in divinity made simple. By Jove! -I tell you, doctor, it burns and sweeps me with a kind of splendid -passion that drowns my little shame-faced personality of the twentieth -century. I could run out and worship--fall down and kiss the grass and -soil and sea--!" - -He drew back suddenly like a wounded animal; his face turned scarlet, -as though he knew himself convicted of an hysterical outburst. Stahl's -eyes had changed even as he spoke the flaming words that struggled so -awkwardly to seize his mood of rapture--a thought the Earth poured -through him for a moment. The bitter, half-mocking smile lay in them, -and on the lips the cold and critical expression of the other Stahl, -skeptic and science-man. A revulsion of feeling caught them both. But to -O'Malley came the thought that once again he had been drawn--was -being coaxed for examination beneath the microscope. - -"The material here," Stahl said presently, with the calm tones of a -dispassionate diagnosis, "is magnificent as you say, uncivilized without -being merely savage, untamed, yet far from crude barbarism. When the -progress of the age gets into this land the transformation will be grand. -When Russia lets in culture, when modern improvements have developed -her resources and trained the wild human forces into useful channels...." - -He went on calmly by the yard, till it was all the Irishman could do -not to dash the wine-glass in his face. - -"Remember my words when you are up in the lonely mountains," he -concluded at length, smiling his queer sardonic smile, "and keep yourself -in hand. Put on the brakes when possible. Your experience will thus -have far more value." - -"And you," replied O'Malley bluntly, so bluntly it was almost rudeness, -"go back to Fechner, and try to save your compromising soul before -it is too late--" - -"Still following those lights that do mislead the morn," Stahl added -gently, breaking into English for a phrase he apparently loved. They -laughed and raised their glasses. - -A long pause came which neither cared to break. The streets were -growing empty, the personality of the mysterious little Black Sea port -folding away into the darkness. The wilder element had withdrawn -behind the shuttered windows. There came a murmur of the waves, but -the soldiers no longer sang. The droschkys ceased to rattle past. The -night flowed down more thickly from the mountains, and the air, moist -with that malarial miasma which makes the climate of this reclaimed -marsh whereon Batoum is built so unhealthy, closed unpleasantly about -them. The stars died in it. - -"Another glass?" suggested Stahl. "A drink to the gods of the Future, -and till we meet again, on your return journey, eh?" - -"I'll walk with you to the steamer," was the reply. "I never care for -much wine. And the gods of the Future will prefer my usual offering, I -think--imaginative faith." - -The doctor did not ask him to explain. They walked down the middle -of the narrow streets. No one was about, nor were there lights in many -windows. Once or twice from an upper story came the faint twanging -of a balalaika against the drone of voices, and occasionally they passed -a little garden where figures outlined themselves among the trees, with -the clink of glasses, laughter of men and girls, and the glowing tips of -cigarettes. - -They turned down toward the harbor where the spars and funnels of -the big steamers were just visible against the sky, and opposite the -unshuttered window of a shop--one of those modern shops that oddly -mar the town with assorted German tinware, Paris hats, and oleographs -indiscriminately mingled--Stahl stopped a moment and pointed. They -moved up idly and looked in. From the shadows of the other side, well -hidden, an armed patrol eyed them suspiciously, though they were not -aware of it. - -"It was before a window like this," remarked Stahl, apparently casually, -"that I once in Tiflis overheard two mountain Georgians talking -together as they examined a reproduction of a modern picture--Boecklin's -'Centaur.' They spoke in half whispers, but I caught the trend of -what they said. You know the picture, perhaps?" - -"I've seen it somewhere, yes," was the short reply. "But what were they -saying?" He strove to keep his voice commonplace and casual like his -companion's. - -"Oh, just discussing it together, but with a curious stretched interest," -Stahl went on. "One asked, 'What does it say?' and pointed to the -inscription underneath. They could not read. For a long time they stared -in silence, their faces grave and half afraid. 'What is it?' repeated the -first one, and the other, a much older man, heavily bearded and of giant -build, replied low, 'It's what I told you about'; there was awe in his -tone and manner; 'they still live in the big valley of the rhododendrons -beyond--' mentioning some lonely uninhabited region toward Daghestan; -'they come in the spring, and are very swift and roaring....You must -always hide. To see them is to die. But they cannot die; they are of the -mountains. They are older, older than the stones. And the dogs will warn -you, or the horses, or sometimes a great sudden wind, though you must -never shoot.' They stood gazing in solemn wonder for minutes...till at -last, realizing that their silence was final, I moved away. There were -manifestations of life in the mountains, you see, that they had seen and -knew about--old forms akin to that picture apparently." - -The patrol came out of his shadows, and Stahl quickly drew his -companion along the pavement. - -"You have your passport with you?" he asked, noticing the man behind -them. - -"It went to the police this afternoon. I haven't got it back yet." -O'Malley spoke thickly, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. How -much he welcomed that casual interruption of the practical world he -could never explain or tell. For the moment he had felt like wax in the -other's hands. He had dreaded searching questions, and felt unspeakably -relieved. A minute more and he would have burst into confession. - -"You should never be without it," the doctor added. "The police here -are perfect fiends, and can cause you endless inconvenience." - -O'Malley knew it all, but gladly seized the talk and spun it out, asking -innocent questions while scarcely listening to the answers. They -distanced the patrol and neared the quays and shipping. In the darkness -of the sky a great line showed where the spurs of the Lesser Caucasus -gloomed huge and solemn to the East and West. At the gangway of the -steamer they said good-bye. Stahl held the Irishman's hand a moment -in his own. - -"Remember, when you know temptation strong," he said gravely, though a -smile was in the eyes, "the passwords that I now give you: Humanity and -Civilization." - -"I'll try." - -They shook hands warmly enough. - -"Come home by this steamer if you can," he called down from the deck. -"And keep to the middle of the road on your way back to the hotel. It's -safer in a town like this." O'Malley divined the twinkle in his -eyes as he said it. "Forgive my many sins," he heard finally, "and when -we meet again, tell me your own...." The darkness took the sentence. -But the word the Irishman took home with him to the little hotel was -the single one--Civilization: and this, owing to the peculiar -significance of intonation and accent with which this bewildering and -self-contradictory being had uttered it. - - - - -XXVI - - -He walked along the middle of the street as Stahl had advised. He -would have done so in any case, unconsciously, for he knew these towns -quite as well as the German did. Yet he did not walk alone. The entire -Earth walked with him, and personal danger was an impossibility. A -dozen ruffians might attack him, but none could "take" his life. - -How simple it all seemed, yet how utterly beyond the reach of -intelligible description to those who have never felt it--this sudden -surge upwards, downwards, all around and about of the vaster -consciousness amid which the sense of normal individuality seemed but a -tiny focused point. That loss of personality he first dreaded as an -"inner catastrophe" appeared to him now for what it actually was--merely -an extinction of some phantasmal illusion of self into the only true -life. Here, upon the fringe of this wonder-region of the Caucasus, the -spirit of the Earth still manifested as of old, reached out lovingly to -those of her children who were simple enough to respond, ready to fold -them in and heal them of the modern, racking fevers which must otherwise -destroy them.... The entire sky of soft darkness became a hand that -covered him, and stroked him into peace; the perfume that wafted down -that narrow street beside him was the single, enveloping fragrance of -the whole wide Earth herself; he caught the very murmur of her splendid -journey through the stars. The certitude of some state of boundless being -flamed, roaring and immense, about his soul.... - -And when he reached his room, a little cell that shut out light and -air, he met that sinister denial of the simple life which, for him at -least, was the true Dweller on the Threshold. Crashing in to it he -choked, as it were, and could have cried aloud. It gripped and caught him -by the throat--the word that Stahl--Stahl who understood even while he -warned and mocked and hesitated himself--had flung so tauntingly -upon him from the decks--Civilization. - -Upon his table lay by chance--the Armenian hotel-keeper had -evidently unearthed it for his benefit--a copy of a London halfpenny -paper, a paper that feeds the public with the ugliest details of all the -least important facts of life by the yard, inventing others when the -supply is poor. He read it over vaguely, with a sense of cold distress -that was half pain, half nausea. Somehow it stirred his sense of humor; -he returned slowly to his normal, littler state. But it was not the -contrast which made him smile; rather was it the chance juxtaposition of -certain of the contents; for on the page facing the accounts of railway -accidents, of people burned alive, explosions, giant strikes, crumpled -air-men and other countless horrors which modern inventions offered upon -the altar of feverish Progress, he read a complacently boastful leader -that extolled the conquest of Nature men had learned _by speed_. The -ability to pass from one point to another across the skin of the globe in -the least possible time was sign of the development of the human soul. - -The pompous flatulence of the language touched bathos. He thought -of the thousands who had read both columns and preened themselves -upon that leader. He thought how they would pride themselves upon -the latest contrivance for speeding their inert bodies from one point to -another "annihilating distance"; upon being able to get from suburbia -to the huge shops that created artificial wants, then filled them; from -the pokey villas with their wee sham gardens to the dingy offices; from -dark airless East End rooms to countless factories that pour out -semifraudulent, unnecessary wares upon the world, explosives and weapons -to destroy another nation, or cheapjack goods to poison their own--all -in a few minutes less than they could do it the week before. - -And then he thought of the leisure of the country folk and of those -who knew how to be content without external possessions, to watch the -sunset and the dawn with hearts that sought realities; sharing the -noble slowness of the seasons, the gradual growth of flowers, trees, -and crops, the unhurried dignity of Nature's grand procession, the -repose-in-progress of the Mother-Earth. - -The calmness of the unhastening Earth once more possessed his soul -in peace. He hid the paper, watching the quiet way the night beyond -his window buried it from sight... - -And through that open window came the perfume and the mighty hand of -darkness slowly. It seemed to this imaginative Irishman that he caught a -sound of awful laughter from the mountains and the sea, a laughter that -brought, too, a wave of sighing--of deep and old-world sighing. - -And before he went to sleep he took an antidote in the form of a -page from that book that accompanied all his travels, a book which was -written wholly in the open air because its message refused to come to -the heart of the inspired writer within doors, try as he would, the "sky -especially containing for me the key, the inspiration--" - -And the fragment that he read expressed a little bit of his own thought -and feeling. The seer who wrote it looked ahead, naming it "After -Civilization," whereas he looked back. But they saw the same vision; -the confusion of time was nothing:-- - -In the first soft winds of spring, while snow yet lay on the ground-- -Forth from the city into the great woods wandering, -Into the great silent white woods where they waited in their beauty and - majesty -For man their companion to come: -There, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilizations, -Slowly out of the ruins of the past - -Out of the litter and muck of a decaying world, -Lo! even so -I saw a new life arise. -O sound of waters, jubilant, pouring, pouring--O hidden song in the - hollows! -Secret of the Earth, swelling, sobbing to divulge itself! -Slowly, building, lifting itself up atom by atom, -Gathering itself round a new center--or rather round the world--old - center once more revealed-- -I saw a new life, a new society, arise. -Man I saw arising once more to dwell with Nature; -(The old old story--the prodigal son returning, so loved, -The long estrangement, the long entanglement in vain things)-- -The child returning to its home--companion of the winter woods once - more-- -Companion of the stars and waters--hearing their words at first-hand - (more than all science ever taught)-- -The near contact, the dear dear mother so close--the twilight sky - and the young tree-tops against it; -The few needs, the exhilarated radiant life--the food and population - question giving no more trouble; -No hurry more, no striving one to over-ride the other: - ... man the companion of Nature. -Civilization behind him now--the wonderful stretch of the past; -Continents, empires, religions, wars, migrations--all gathered up in him; -The immense knowledge, the vast winged powers--to use or not to use--... - -And as he fell asleep at length it seemed there came a sound of hushed -huge trampling underneath his window, and that when he rose to listen, -his big friend from the steamer led him forth into the darkness, that -those shapes of Cloud and Wind he now so often saw, companioned them -across the heights of the night toward some place in the distant -mountains where light and flowers were, and all his dream of years most -exquisitely fulfilled.... - -He slept. And through his sleep there dropped the words of that old -tribesman from the wilderness: "They come in the spring... and are -very swift and roaring. They are older, older than the stones. They -cannot die... they are of the mountains, and you must hide." - -But the dream-consciousness knows no hiding; and though memory -failed to report with detail in the morning, O'Malley woke refreshed -and blessed, knowing that companionship awaited him, and that once -he found the courage to escape completely, the Simple Life of Earth -would claim him in full consciousness. - -Stahl with his little modern "Intellect" was no longer there to hinder -and prevent. - - - - -XXVII - -"Far, very far, steer by my star, -Leaving the loud world's hurry and clamor, -In the mid-sea waits you, maybe, -The Isles of Glamour, where Beauty reigns. -From coasts of commerce and myriad-marted -Towns of traffic by wide seas parted, -Past shoals unmapped and by reefs uncharted, -The single-hearted my isle attains. - -"Each soul may find faith to her mind, -Seek you the peace of the groves Elysian, -Or the ivy twine and the wands of vine, -The Dionysian, Orphic rite? -To share the joy of the Maenad's leaping -In frenzied train thro' the dusk glen sweeping, -The dew-drench'd dance and the star-watch'd sleeping, -Or temple keeping in vestal white? - -"Ye who regret suns that have set, -Lo, each god of the ages golden, -Here is enshrined, ageless and kind, -Unbeholden the dark years through. -Their faithful oracles yet bestowing, -By laurels whisper and clear streams flowing, -Or the leafy stir of the Gods' own going, -In oak trees blowing, may answer you!" - ---From PEREGRINA'S SONG - - -For the next month Terence O'Malley possessed his soul in patience; -he worked, and the work saved him. That is to say it enabled him to -keep what men call "balanced." Stahl had--whether intentionally or -not he was never quite certain--raised a tempest in him. More accurately, -perhaps, he had called it to the top, for it had been raging deep -down ever since he could remember, or had begun to think. - -That the earth might be a living, sentient organism, though too vast -to be envisaged as such by normal human consciousness, had always been a -tenet of his imagination's creed. Now he knew it true, as a dinner-gong -is true. That deep yearnings, impossible of satisfaction in the external -conditions of ordinary life, could know subjective fulfillment in the -mind, had always been for him poetically true, as for any other poet: now -he realized that it was literally true for some outlying tract of -consciousness usually inactive, termed by some transliminal. Spiritual -nostalgia provided the channel, and the transfer of consciousness -to this outlying tract, involving, of course, a trance condition of -the usual self, indicated the way--that was all. - -Again, his mystical temperament had always seen objects as forces -which from some invisible center push outwards into visible shape--as -bodies: bodies of trees, stones, flowers, men, women, animals; and -others but partially pushed outwards, still invisible to limited physical -sight at least, either too huge, too small, or too attenuated for vision. -Whereas now, as a result of Stahl and Fechner combined, it flamed into -him that this was positively true; more--that there was a point in his -transliminal consciousness where he might "contact" these forces before -they reached their cruder external expression as bodies. Nature, in this -sense, had always been for him alive, though he had allowed himself -the term by a long stretch of poetic sympathy; but now he knew that it -was actually true, because objects, landscapes, humans, and the rest, -were verily aspects of the collective consciousness of the Earth, moods -of her spirit, phases of her being, expressions of her deep, pure, -passionate "heart"--projections of herself. - -He pondered lingeringly over this. Common words revealed their open faces -to him. He saw the ideas behind language, saw them naked. Repetition had -robbed them of so much that now became vital, like Bible phrases that too -great familiarity in childhood kills for all subsequent life as -meaningless. His eyes were opened perhaps. He took a flower into his mind -and thought about it; really thought; meditated lovingly. A flower was -literally projected by the earth so far as its form was concerned. Its -roots gathered soil and earth-matter, changing them into leaves and -blossoms; its leaves again, took of the atmosphere, also a part of the -earth. It was projected by the earth, born of her, fed by her, and at -"death" returned into her. But this was its outward and visible form -only. The flower, for his imaginative mind, was a force made visible -as literally as a house was a force the mind of the architect made -visible. In the mind, or consciousness of the Earth this flower first lay -latent as a dream. Perhaps, in her consciousness, it nested as that which -in us corresponds to a little thought.... And from this he leaped, as the -way ever was with him, to bigger "projections"--trees, atmosphere, -clouds, winds, some visible, some invisible, and so to a deeper yet -simpler comprehension of Fechner's thundering conception of human beings -as projections. Was he, then, literally, a child of the Earth, mothered -by the whole magnificent planet...? All the world akin--that seeking for -an eternal home in every human heart explained...? And were there--had -there been rather--these other, vaster projections Stahl had adumbrated -with his sudden borrowed stretch of vision--forces, thoughts, moods of -her hidden life invisible to sight, yet able to be felt and known -interiorly? - -That "the gods" were definitely knowable Powers, accessible to any -genuine worshipper, had ever haunted his mind, thinly separated only -from definite belief: now he understood that this also had been true, -though only partially divined before. For now he saw them as the rare -expressions of the Earth's in the morning of her life. That he might ever -come to know them close made him tremble with a fearful joy, the idea -flaming across his being with a dazzling brilliance that brought him -close to that state of consciousness termed ecstasy. And that in certain -unique beings, outwardly human like his friend, there might still survive -some primitive expression of the Earth-Soul, lesser than the gods, and -intermediate as it were, became for him now a fact--wondrous, -awe-inspiring, even holy, but still a fact that he could grasp. - -He had found one such; and Stahl, by warnings that fought with urging -invitation at the same time, had confirmed it. - -It was singular, he reflected, how worship had ever turned for him a -landscape or a scene enchantingly alive. Worship, he now understood, -of course invited "the gods," and was the channel through which their -manifestation became possible to the soul. All the gods, then, were -accessible in this interior way, but Pan especially--in desolate places -and secret corners of a wood.... He remembered dimly the Greek idea -of worship in the Mysteries: that the worshipper knew actual temporary -union with his deity in ecstasy, and at death went permanently into his -sphere of being. He understood that worship was au fond a desire for -loss of personal life--hence its subtle joy; and a fear lest it be -actually accomplished--whence its awe and wonder. - -Some glorious, winged thing moved now beside him; it held him by -the hand. The Earth possessed him; and the whole adventure, so far as -he can make it plain, was an authoritative summons to the natural, -Simple Life. - -For the next month, therefore, O'Malley, unhurrying, blessed with a -deeper sense of happiness than he had ever known before, dismissed -the "tempest" from his surface consciousness, and set to work to gather -the picturesque impressions of strange places and strange peoples that -the public liked to read about in occasional letters of travel. And by -the time May had passed into June he had moved up and down the Caucasus, -observing, learning, expanding, and gathering in the process through -every sense--through the very pores of his skin almost--draughts of a new -and abundant life that is to be had there merely for the asking. - -That modification of the personality which comes even in cities to all -but the utterly hidebound--so that a man in Rome finds himself not quite -the same as he was in London or in Paris a few days before--went forward -in him on a profounder scale than anything he had known hitherto. Nature -fed, stimulated and called him with a passionate intimacy that destroyed -all sense of loneliness, and with a vehement directness of attack that -simply charged him to the brim with a new joy of living. His vitality, -powers, even his physical health, stood at their best and highest. The -country laid its spell upon him, in a word; and if he expresses it thus -with some intensity it was because life came to him so. His record is the -measure of his vision. Those who find exaggeration in it merely confess -thereby their own smaller capacity of living. - -Here, as he wandered to and fro among these proud, immense, secluded -valleys, through remote and untamed forests, and by the banks of wild -rivers that shook their flying foam across untrodden banks, he wandered -at the same time deeper and ever deeper into himself, toward a point -where he lost touch with all that constituted him "modern," or held him -captive in the spirit of today. Nearer and ever nearer he moved into some -tremendous freedom, some state of innocence and simplicity that, while -gloriously unrestrained, yet knew no touch of license. Dreams had -whispered of it; childhood had fringed its frontiers; longings had even -mapped it faintly to his mind. But now he breathed its very air and knew -it face to face. The Earth surged wonderfully about him. - -With his sleeping-bag upon a small Caucasian horse, a sack to hold -his cooking things, a pistol in his belt, he wandered thus for days, -sleeping beneath the stars, seeing the sunset and the dawn, drenched in -new strength and wonder all the time. Here he touched deeper reaches -of the Earth that spoke of old, old things, that yet were still young -because they knew not change. He walked in the morning of the world, -through her primal fire and dew, when all was a first and giant garden. - -The advertised splendors of other lands, even of India, Egypt, and -the East, seemed almost vulgar beside this country that had somehow -held itself aloof, unstained and clean. The civilization of its little -towns seemed but a coated varnish that an hour's sun would melt away; the -railway, crawling along the flanks of the great range, but a ribbon of -old iron pinned on that, with the first shiver of those giant sides, -would split and vanish. - -Here, where the Argonauts once landed, the Golden Fleece still shone o' -nights in the depths of the rustling beech woods; along the shores of -that old Phasis their figures might still be seen, tall Jason in the -lead, erect and silvery, passing o'er the shining, flowered fields upon -their quest of ancient beauty. Further north from this sunny Colchian -strand rose the peak of Kasbek, gaunt and desolate pyramid of iron, -"sloping through five great zones of climate," whence the ghost of -Prometheus still gazed down from his "vast frozen precipice" upon a world -his courage would redeem. For somewhere here was the cradle of the human -race, fair garden of some Edened life before the "Fall," when the Earth -sang for joy in her first, golden youth, and her soul expressed itself in -mighty forms that remain for lesser days but a faded hierarchy of -visioned gods. - -A living Earth went with him everywhere, with love that never breathed -alarm. It seemed he felt her very thoughts within himself--thoughts, -however, that now no longer married with a visible expression as shapes. - -Among these old-world tribes and peoples with their babble of difficult -tongues, wonder and beauty, terror and worship, still lay too deeply -buried to have as yet externalized themselves in mental forms as legend, -myth, and story. In the blood ran all their richness undiluted. Life was -simple, full charged with an immense delight. At home little cocksure -writers in little cocksure journals, pertly modern and enlightened, might -dictate how far imaginative vision and belief could go before they -overstepped the limits of an artificial schedule; but here "everything -possible to be believed was still an image of truth," and the stream of -life flowed deeper than all mere intellectual denials. - -A little out of sight, but thinly veiled, the powers that in this haunted -corner of the earth, too strangely neglected, pushed outwards into men -and trees, into mountains, flowers, and the rest, were unenslaved and -intensely vital. In his blood O'Malley knew the primal pulses of the -world. - -It was irresistibly seductive. Whether he slept with the Aryan -Ossetians upon the high ridges of the central range, or shared the stone -huts of the mountain Jews, unchanged since Bible days, beyond the -Suram heights, there came to all his senses the message of that Golden -Age his longings ever sought--the rush and murmur of the _Urwelt_ -calling. - -And so it was, about the first week in June that lean, bronzed, and -in perfect physical condition, this wandering Irishman found himself -in a little Swanetian hamlet beyond Alighir, preparing with a Georgian -peasant-guide to penetrate yet deeper into the mountain recesses and -feed his heart with what he found of loneliness and beauty. - -This region of Imerethia, bordering on Mingrelia, is smothered -beneath an exuberance of vegetation almost tropical, blue and golden -with enormous flowers, tangled with wild vines, rich with towering soft -beech woods, and finally, in the upper sections, ablaze with leagues of -huge rhododendron trees in blossom that give whole mountain-sides -the aspect of a giant garden, flowering amid peaks that even dwarf the -Alps. For here the original garden of the world survives, run wild with -pristine loveliness. The prodigality of Nature is bewildering, almost -troubling. There are valleys, rarely entered by the foot of man, where -monstrous lilies, topping a man on foot and even reaching to his -shoulder on horseback, have suggested to botanists in their lavish -luxuriance a survival of the original flora of the world. A thousand -flowers he found whose names he had never heard of, their hues and -forms as strangely lovely as those of another planet. The grasses alone -in scale and mass were magnificent. While, in and out of all this -splendor, less dense and voluminous only than the rhododendron -forests, ran scattered lines of blazing yellow--the crowding clusters of -azalea bushes that scented the winds beyond belief. - -Beyond this region of extravagance in size and color, there ran -immense bare open slopes of smooth turf that led to the foot of the -eternal snowfields, with, far below, valleys of prodigious scale and -steepness that touched somehow with disdain all memory of other -mountain ranges he had ever known. - -And here it was this warm June evening--June 15th it was--while packing -his sack with cheese and maize-flour in the dirty yard of a so-called -"post-house," more hindered than helped by his Georgian guide, that he -realized the approach of a familiar, bearded figure. The figure emerged. -There was a sudden clutch and lift of the heart ... then a rush of wild -delight. There stood his Russian steamer-friend, part of the scale and -splendor, as though grown out of the very soil. He occupied in a flash -the middle of the picture. He gave it meaning. He was part of it, exactly -as a tree or big grey boulder were part of it. - - - - -XXVIII - -"Seasons and times; Life and Fate--all are remarkably rhythmic, metric, -regular throughout. In all crafts and arts, in all machines, in organic -bodies, in our daily occupations everywhere there is rhythm, meter, -accent, melody. All that we do with a certain skill unnoticed, we do -rhythmically. There is rhythm everywhere; it insinuates itself -everywhere. All mechanism is metric, rhythmic. There must be more in it -than this. Is it merely the influence of inertia?" - ---NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B. - - -Notwithstanding the extent and loneliness of this wild country, -coincidence seemed in no way stretched by the abrupt appearance; for -in a sense it was not wholly unexpected. There had been certain -indications that the meeting again of these two was imminent. The -Irishman had never doubted they would meet. But something more than mere -hints or warnings, it seemed, had prepared him. - -The nature of these warnings, however, O'Malley never fully disclosed. -Two of them he told to me by word of mouth, but there were others he -could not bring himself to speak about at all. Even the two he mentioned -do not appear in his written account. His hesitation is not easy to -explain, unless it be that language collapsed in the attempt to describe -occurrences so remote from common experience. This may be so, although he -grappled not unsuccessfully with the rest of the amazing adventure. At -any rate I could never coax from him more than the confession that there -_were_ other things that had brought him hints. Then came a laugh, a -shrug of the shoulders, an expression of confused bewilderment in eyes -and manner and--silence. - -The two he spoke of I report as best I can. On the roof of that London -apartment-house where so many of our talks took place beneath the -stars and to the tune of bustling modern traffic, he told them to me. -Both were consistent with his theory that he was becoming daily more -active in some outlying portion of his personality--knowing experiences -in a region of extended consciousness stimulated so powerfully -by his strange new friend. - -Both, moreover, brought him one and the same conviction that he -was no longer--alone. For some days past he had realized this. More -than his peasant guide accompanied him. He was both companioned -and--observed. - -"A dozen times," he said, "I thought I saw him, and a dozen times I -was mistaken. But my mind looked for him. I knew that he was -somewhere close." He compared the feeling to that common experience -of the streets when a friend, not known to be near, or even expected, -comes abruptly into the thoughts, so that numberless individuals may -trick the sight with his appearance before he himself comes suddenly -down the pavement. His approach has reached the mind before his mere -body turns the corner. "Something in me was aware of his approach," -he added, "as though his being were sending out feelers in advance to -find me. They reached me first, I think"--he hesitated briefly, hunting -for a more accurate term he could not find--"in dream." - -"You dreamed that he was coming, then?" - -"It came first in dream," he answered; "only when I woke the dream -did not fade; it passed over into waking consciousness, so that I could -hardly tell where the threshold lay between the two. And, meanwhile, I -was always expecting to see him at every turn of the trail almost; a -little higher up the mountain, behind a rock, or standing beside a tree, -just as in the end I actually did see him. Long before he emerged in this -way, he had been close about me, guiding, waiting, watching." - -He told it as a true thing he did not quite expect me to believe. Yet, -in a sense, _his_ sense, I could and did believe it. It was so wholly -consistent with the tenor of his adventure and the condition of abnormal -receptivity of mind. For his stretched consciousness was in a state of -white sensitiveness whereon the tenderest mental force of another's -thought might well record its signature. Acutely impressionable he was -all over. Physical distance was of as little, or even of less, account to -such forces as it is to electricity. - -"But it was more than the Russian who was close," he added quietly -with one of those sentences that startled me into keen attention. "He -was there--with others--of his kind." - -And then, hardly pausing to take breath, he plunged, as his manner -was, full tilt into the details of this first experience that thrilled my -hedging soul with an astonishing power of conviction. As always when -his heart was in the words, the scenery about us faded and I lived the -adventure with him. The cowled and hooded chimneys turned to trees, -the stretch of dim star-lit London Park became a deep Caucasian vale, -the thunder of the traffic was the roaring of the snow-fed torrents. The -very perfume of strange flowers floated in the air. - -They had been in their blankets, he and his peasant guide, for hours, -and a moon approaching the full still concealed all signs of dawn, when -he woke out of deep sleep with the odd sensation that it was only a part -of him that woke. One portion of him was in the body, while another -portion was elsewhere, manifesting with ease and freedom in some state -or region whither he had traveled in his sleep--where, moreover, he -had not been alone. - -And close about him in the trees was--movement. Yes! Through and -between the scattered trunks he saw it still. - -With eyes a little dazed, the active portion of his brain perceived this -processing movement passing to and fro across the glades of moonlight -beneath the steady trees. For there was no wind. The shadows of the -branches did not stir. He saw swift running shapes, vigorous yet silent, -hurrying across the network of splashed silver and pools of black in -some kind of organized movement that was circular and seemed not due to -chance. Arranged it seemed and ordered; like the regulated revolutions -of a set and whirling measure. - -Perhaps twenty feet from where he lay was the outer fringe of what -he discerned to be this fragment of some grand gamboling dance or -frolic; yet discerned but dimly, for the darkness combined with his -uncertain vision to obscure it. - -And the shapes, as they sped across the silvery patchwork of the moon, -seemed curiously familiar. Beyond question he recognized and knew them. -For they were akin to those shadowy emanations seen weeks ago upon the -steamer's after-deck, to that "messenger" who climbed from out the sea -and sky, and to that form the spirit of the boy assumed, set free in -death. They were the flying outlines of Wind and Cloud he had so often -glimpsed in vision, racing over the long, bare, open hills--at last come -near. - -In the moment of first waking, when he saw them clearest, he declares -with emphasis that he _knew_ the father and the boy were among them. -Not so much that he saw them actually for recognition, but rather that -he felt their rushing presences; for the first sensation on opening his -eyes was the conviction that both had passed him close, had almost -touched and called him. Afterwards he searched in vain among the -flying forms that swept in the swift succession of their leaping dance -across the silvery pathways. While varying in size all were so similar. - -His description of them is confused a little, for he admits that he -could never properly focus them in steady sight. They slipped with a -melting swiftness under the eye; the moment one seemed caught in vision -it passed on further and the next was in its place. It was like -following a running wave-form on the sea. He says, moreover, that while -erect and splendid, their backs and shoulders seemed prolonged in -hugeness as though they often crouched to spring; they seemed to paw -the air; and that a faint delicious sound to which they kept obedient -time and rhythm, held that same sweetness which had issued from the -hills of Greece, blown down now among the trees from very far away. -And when he says "blown down among the trees," he qualifies this -phrase as well, because at the same time it came to him that the sound -also rose up from underneath the earth, as if the very surface of the -ground ran shaking with a soft vibration of its own. Some marvelous -dream it might have been in which the forms, the movement, and the -sound were all thrown up and outwards from the quivering surface of -the Earth itself. - -Yet, almost simultaneously with the first instant of waking, the body -issued its call of warning. For, while he gazed, and before time for the -least reflection came, the Irishman experienced this dislocating -conviction that he himself was taking part in the whirling gambol even -while he lay and watched it, and that in this way the sense of division -in his personality was explained. The fragment of himself within the -brain watched some other more vital fragment--some projection of his -consciousness detached and separate--playing yonder with its kind -beneath the moon. - -This sense of a divided self was not new to him, but never before had -he known it so distinct and overwhelming. The definiteness of the -division, as well as the importance and vitality of the separated -portion, were arrestingly novel. It felt as though he were completely -out, or to such a degree, at least, that the fraction left behind with -the brain was at first only just sufficient for him to recognize his body -at all. - -Yonder with these others he felt the wind of movement pass along -his back, he saw the trees slip by, and knew the very contact of the -ground between the leaps. His movements were natural and easy, light -as air and fast as wind; they seemed automatic, impelled by something -mighty that directed and contained them. He knew, too, the sensation -that others pressed behind him and passed before, slipped in and out, -and that through the whole wild urgency of it he yet could never make -an error. More--he knew that these shifting forms had been close and -dancing about him for a time not measurable merely by the hours of a -single night, that in a sense they were always there though he had but -just discovered them. His earlier glimpses had been a very partial -divination of a truth, immense and beautiful, that now dawned quite -gorgeously upon him all complete. - -The whole world danced. The Universe was rhythmical as well as metrical. - -For this amazing splendor showed itself in a flash-like revelation to -the freed portion of his consciousness, and he knew it irresistibly -because he himself shared it. Here was an infinite joy, naked and -unashamed, born of the mighty Mother's heart and life, a joy which, in -its feebler, lesser manifestations, trickles down into human conditions, -though still spontaneously even then, so pure its primal urgency, -as--dancing. - -The entire experience, the entire revelation, he thinks, can have -occupied but a fraction of a second, but it seemed to smite the whole -of his being at once with the conviction of a supreme authority. And -close behind it came, too, that other sister expression of a spontaneous -and natural expression, equally rhythmical--the impulse to sing. He -could have sung aloud. For this puissant and mysterious rhythm to which -all moved was greater than any little measure of their own. Surging -through them, it came from outside and beyond, infinitely greater than -themselves, springing from something of which they were, nevertheless, a -living portion. From the body of the Earth it came direct--it was in -fact a manifestation of her own vibrating life. The currents of the -Earth pulsed through them. - -"And then," he says, "I caught this flaming thought of wonder, though so -much of it faded instantly upon my full awakening that I can only give -you the merest suggestion of what it was." - -He stood up beside me as he said it, spreading his arms, as so often -when he was excited, to the sky. I caught the glow of his eyes, and in -his voice was passion. He spoke unquestionably of something he had -intimately known, not as men speak of even the vividest dreams, but of -realities that have burned the heart and left their trails of glory. - -"Science has guessed some inkling of the truth," he cried, "when it -declares that the ultimate molecules of matter are in constant vibratory -movement one about another, even upon the point of a needle. But I -saw--_knew_, rather, as if I had always known it, sweet as summer rain, -and close in me as love--that the whole Earth with all her myriad -expressions of life moved to this primal rhythm as of some divine -dancing." - -"Dancing?" I asked, puzzled. - -"Rhythmical movement call it then," he replied. "To share the life of -the Earth is to dance and sing in a huge abundant joy! And the nearer -to her great heart, the more natural and spontaneous the impulse--the -instinctive dancing of primitive races, of savages and children, still -artless and untamed; the gamboling of animals, of rabbits in the meadows -and of deer unwatched in forest clearings--you know naturalists have -sometimes seen it; of birds in the air--rooks, gulls, and swallows; of -the life within the sea; even of gnats in the haze of summer afternoons. -All life simple enough to touch and share the enormous happiness of -her deep, streaming, personal Being, dances instinctively for very -joy--obedient to a greater measure than they know.... The natural -movement of the great Earth-Soul is rhythmical. The very winds, the -swaying of trees and flowers and grasses, the movement of the sea, of -water running through the fields with silver feet, of the clouds and -edges of the mist, even the trembling of the earthquakes,--all, all -respond in sympathetic motions to this huge vibratory movement of her -great central pulse. Ay, and the mountains too, though so vastly -scaled their measure that perhaps we only know the pauses in between, -and think them motionless.... The mountains rise and fall and change; -our very breathing, first sign of stirring life, even the circulation of -our blood, bring testimony; our speech as well--inspired words are ever -rhythmical, language that pours into the poet's mind from something -greater than himself. And not unwisely, but in obedience to a deep -instinctive knowledge was dancing once--in earlier, simpler days--a -form of worship. You know, at least, how rhythm in music and ceremonial -uplifts and cleans and simplifies the heart toward the greater life.... -You know, perhaps, the Dance of Jesus...." - -The words poured from him with passion, yet always uttered gently -with a smile of joy upon the face. I saw his figure standing over me, -outlined against the starry sky; and, deeply stirred, I listened with -delight and wonder. Rhythm surely lies behind all expression of life. -He was on the heels of some simple, dazzling verity though he phrased it -wildly. But not a tenth part of all he said could I recapture afterwards -for writing down. The steady, gentle swaying of his body I remember -clearly, and that somewhere or other in the stream of language, he made -apt reference to the rhythmical swaying of those who speak in trance, or -know some strange, possessing gust of inspiration. - -The first and natural expression of the Earth's vitality lies in a -dancing movement of purest joy and happiness--that for me is the gist of -what remains. Those near enough to Nature feel it. I myself remembered -days in spring ... my thoughts, borne upon some sweet emotion, traveled -far.... - -"And not of the Earth alone," he interrupted my dreaming in a voice -like singing, "but of the entire Universe. The spheres and -constellations weave across the fields of ether the immense old rhythm of -their divine, eternal dance...!" - -Then, with a disconcerting abruptness, and a strange little wayward -laugh as of apology for having let himself so freely go, he sat down -beside me with his back against the chimney-stack. He resumed more -quietly the account of this particular adventure that lay 'twixt dream -and waking: - -All that he described had happened in a few seconds. It flashed, -complete, authoritative and vivid, then passed away. He knew again the -call and warning of his body--to return. For this consciousness of being -in two places at once, divided as it were against himself, brought with -it the necessity for decision. With which portion should he identify -himself? By an act of will, it seemed, a choice was possible. - -And with it, then, came the knowledge that to remain "out" was easier -than to return. This time, to come back into himself would be difficult. - -The very possibility seemed to provide the shock of energy necessary -for overcoming it; the experience alarmed him; it was like holding an -option upon living--like a foretaste of death. Automatically, as it were, -these loosened forces in him answered to the body's summons. The -result was immediate and singular; one of these Dancing outlines -separated itself from the main herd, approached with a sudden silent -rush, enveloped him for a second of darkness and confusion, losing its -shape completely on the way, and then merged into his being as smoke -slips in and merges with the structure of a tree. - -The projected portion of his personality had returned. The sense of -division was gone. There remained behind only the little terror of the -weak flesh whose summons had thus brought it back. - -The same instant he was fully awake--the night about him empty -of all but the silver dreaming of the moon among the shadows. Beside -him lay the sleeping figure of his companion, the bashlik of lamb's wool -drawn closely down about the ears and neck, and the voluminous black -burka shrouding him from feet to shoulders. A little distance away the -horse stood, munching grass. Again he noted that there was no wind, -and the shadows of the trees lay motionless upon the ground. The air -smelt sweet of forest, soil, and dew. - -The experience--it seemed now--belonged to dreaming rather than -to waking consciousness, for there was nothing about him to confirm -it outwardly. Only the memory remained--that, and a vast, deep-coursing, -subtle happiness. The smaller terror that he felt was of the flesh -alone, for the flesh ever instinctively fought against such separation. -The happiness, though, contained and overwhelmed the fear. - -Yes, only the memory remained, and even that fast fading. But the -substance of what had been, passed into his inmost being: the splendor -of that would remain forever, incorporated with his life. He had shared -in this brief moment of extended consciousness some measure of the -Mother's cosmic being, simple as sunshine, unrestrained as wind, complete -and satisfying. Its natural expression was rhythmical, a deep, pure -joy that drove outwards even into little human conditions as dancing -and singing. He had known it, too, with companions of his kind... - -Moreover, though no longer visible or audible, it still continued -somewhere close. He was blessedly companioned all the time--and -watched. _They_ knew him one of themselves--these brother expressions -of her cosmic life--these _Urwelt_ beings that Today had no external, -bodily forms. They waited, knowing well that he would come. Fulfillment -beckoned surely just beyond... - - - - -XXIX - -"... And then suddenly,-- - While perhaps twice my heart was dutiful - To send my blood upon its little race-- - I was exalted above surety, - And out of Time did fall." - ---LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE, _Poems and Interludes_ - - -This, then, was one of the "hints" by which O'Malley knew that he -was not alone and that the mind of his companion was stretched out -to find him. He became aware after it of a distinct guidance, even of -direction as to his route of travel. The "impulse came," as one says, to -turn northwards, and he obeyed it without more ado. For this "dream" -had come to him when camped upon the slopes of Ararat, further south -toward the Turkish frontier, and though all prepared to climb the -sixteen-thousand foot summit, he changed his plans, dismissed the local -guide, and turned back for Tiflis and the Central Range. In the wilder, -lonelier mountains, he felt strongly, was where he ought to be. - -Another man, of course, would have dismissed the dream or forgotten -it while cooking his morning coffee; but, rightly or wrongly, this -divining Celt accepted it as real. He held an instinctive belief, that in -dreams of a certain order the forces that drive behind the soul at a -given moment, may reveal themselves to the subconscious self, becoming -authoritative in proportion as they are sanely encouraged and -interpreted. They dramatize themselves in scenes that are open to -intuitive interpretation. And O'Malley, it seems, possessed, like the -Hebrew prophets of old, just that measure of judgment and divination -which go to the making of a true clear-vision. - -Packing up kit and dunnage, he crossed the Georgian Military Route -on foot to Vladikavkaz, and thence with another horse and a Mohammedan -Georgian as guide, Rostom by name, journeyed _via_ Alighir and Oni up a -side valley of unforgettable splendor toward an Imerethian hamlet where -they meant to lay-in supplies for a prolonged expedition into the -uninhabited wilderness. - -And here, the second occurrence he told me of took place. It was more -direct than the first, yet equally strange; also it brought a similar -authority--coming first along the deep mysterious underpaths of -sleep--sleep, that short cut into the subconscious. - -They were camped among low boxwood trees, a hot dry night, wind soft and -stars very brilliant, when the Irishman turned in his sleeping-bag -and abruptly woke. This time there was no dream--only the certainty that -something had wakened him deliberately. He sat up, almost with a cry. It -was exactly as though he heard himself called by name and recognized the -voice that spoke it. He looked quickly round. Nothing but the crowding -army of the box-trees was visible, some bushy and round, others -straggling in their outline, all whispering gently together in the night. -Beyond ran the immense slopes, and far overhead he saw the gleaming snow -on peaks that brushed the stars. - -No one was visible. This time no flying figures danced beneath the -moon. There was, indeed, no moon. Something, however, he knew had -come up close and touched him, calling him from the depths of a -profound and tired slumber. It had withdrawn again, vanished into the -night. The strong certainty remained, though, that it lingered near about -him still, trying to press forwards and outwards into some kind of -objective visible expression that _included himself_. He had responded -with an effort in his sleep, but the effort had been unsuccessful. He had -merely waked ... and lost it. - -The horse, tethered a few feet away, was astir and troubled, straining -at the rope, whinnying faintly, and Rostom, the Georgian peasant, he -saw, was already up to quiet it. A curious perfume passed him through -the air--once, then vanished; unforgettable, however, for he had known -it already weeks ago upon the steamer. And before the gardened woods -about him smothered it with their richer smells of a million flowers -and weeds, he recognized in it that peculiar pungent whiff of horse that -had reached him from the haunted cabin. This time it was less fleeting--a -fine, clean odor that he liked even while it strangely troubled him. - -Kicking out of his blankets, he joined the man and helped to -straighten out the tangled rope. Rostom spoke little Russian, and -O'Malley's knowledge of Georgian lay in a single phrase, "Look sharp!" -but with the aid of French the man had learned from shooting-parties, -he gathered that some one had approached during the night and -camped, it seemed, not far away above them. - -Though unusual enough in so unfrequented a region, this was not -necessarily alarming, and the first proof O'Malley had that the man -experienced no ordinary physical fear was the fact that he had left both -knife and rifle in his blankets. Hitherto, at the least sign of danger, -he changed into a perfect arsenal; he invariably slept "in his weapons"; -but now, even in the darkness, the other noted that he was unarmed, and -therefore it was no attempt at horse-stealing or of assault upon -themselves he feared. - -"Who is it? What is it?" he asked, stumbling over the tangle of -string-like roots that netted the ground. "Natives, travelers like -ourselves, or--something else?" He spoke very low, as though aware that -what had waked him still hovered close enough to overhear. "Why do you -fear?" - -And Rostom looked up a moment from stooping over the rope. He stepped a -little nearer, avoiding the animal's hoofs. In a confused whisper of -French and Russian, making at the same time the protective signs of his -religion, he muttered a sentence of which the other caught little more -than the unassuring word that something was about them close--something -"_mechant_." This curious, significant word he used. - -The whispered utterance, the manner that went with it, surely the dark -and lonely setting of the little scene as well, served to convey the -full suggestion of the adjective with a force the man himself could -scarcely have intended. Something had passed by, not so much evil, -wicked, or malign as strange and alien--uncanny. Rostom, a man utterly -careless of physical danger, rising to it, rather, with delight, was -frightened--in his soul. - -"What do you mean?" O'Malley asked louder, with an air of impatience -assumed. The man was on his knees, but whether praying, or merely -struggling with the rope, was hard to see. "What is it you're talking -about so foolishly?" He spoke with a confidence he hardly felt himself. - -And the involved reply, spoken with lips against the earth, the head -but slightly turned as he knelt, again smothered the words. Only the -curious phrase came to him--"_de l'ancien monde_--_quelque-chose_--" - -The Irishman took him by the shoulders. Not meaning actually to shake -him, he yet must have used some violence, for the fact was that he did -not like the answers and sought to deny some strong emotion in himself. -The man stood up abruptly with a kind of sudden spring. The expression of -his face was not easily divined in the darkness, but a gleam of the eyes -was clearly visible. It may have been anger, it may have been terror; -vivid excitement it certainly was. - -"Something--old as the stones, old as the stones," he whispered, -thrusting his dark bearded face unpleasantly close. "Such things are in -these mountains.... _Mais oui! C'est moi qui vous le dis!_ Old as the -stones, I tell you. And sometimes they come out close--with sudden wind. -_We_ know!" - -He stepped back again sharply and dropped upon his knees, bowing -to the ground with flattened palms. He made a repelling gesture as -though it was O'Malley's presence that brought the experience. - -"And to see them is--to die!" he heard, muttered against the ground -thickly. "To see them is to die!" - -The Irishman went back to his sleeping-bag. Some strange passion of -the man was deeply stirred; he did not wish to offend his violent beliefs -and turn it against himself in a stupid, scrambling fight. He lay and -waited. He heard the muttering of the deep voice behind him in the -darkness. Presently it ceased. Rostom came softly back to bed. - -"_He_ knows; _he_ warned me!" he whispered, jerking one hand toward the -horse significantly, as they at length lay again side by side in their -blankets and the stars shone down upon them from a deep black sky. -"But, for the moment, they have passed, not finding us. No wind has -come." - -"Another--horse?" asked O'Malley suggestively, with a sympathy -meant to quiet him. - -But the peasant shook his head; and this time it was not difficult to -divine the expression on his face even in the darkness. At the same -moment the tethered animal again uttered a long whinnying cry, plaintive, -yet of pleasure rather than alarm it seemed, which instantly brought -the man again with a leap from the blankets to his knees. O'Malley did -not go to help him; he stuffed the clothes against his ears and waited; -he did not wish to hear the peasant's sentences. - -And this pantomime went on at intervals for an hour or more, when -at length the horse grew quiet and O'Malley snatched moments of -unrefreshing sleep. The night lay thick about them with a silence like -the silence of the sky. The boxwood bushes ran together into a single -sheet of black, the far peaks faded out of sight, the air grew keen and -sharp toward the dawn on the wave of wind the sunrise drives before it -round the world. But to and fro across the Irishman's mind as he lay -between sleep and dozing ran the feeling that his friends were close, and -that those dancing forms of cosmic life to which all three approximated -had come near once more to summon him. He also knew that what the -horse had felt was something far from terror. The animal instinctively -had divined the presence of something to which it, too, was remotely -kin. - -Rostom, however, remained keenly on the alert, much of the time -apparently praying. Not once did he touch the weapons that lay ready -to hand upon the folded burka ... and when at last the dawn came, pale -and yellow, through the trees, showing the outlines of the individual box -and azalea bushes, he got up earlier than usual and began to make the -fire for coffee. In the fuller light which soon poured swiftly over the -eastern summits and dropped gold and silver into the tremendous valley at -their feet, the men made a systematic search of the immediate -surroundings, and then of the clearings and more open stretches beyond. -In silence they made it. They found, however, no traces of another -camping-party. And it was clear from the way they went about the search -that neither expected to find anything. The ground was unbroken, the -bushes undisturbed. - -Yet still, both knew. That "something" which the night had brought -and kept concealed, still hovered close about them. - -And it was at this scattered hamlet, consisting of little more than -a farm of sorts and a few shepherds' huts of stone, where they stopped -two hours later for provisions, that O'Malley looked up thus suddenly -and recognized the figure of his friend. He stood among the trees a -hundred yards away. At first the other thought he was a tree--his -stalwart form the stem, his hair and beard the branches--so big and -motionless he stood between the other trunks. O'Malley saw him for a full -minute before he understood. The man seemed so absolutely a part of the -landscape, a giant detail in keeping with the rest--a detail that had -suddenly emerged. - -The same moment a great draught of wind, rising from depths of the -valley below, swept overhead with a roaring sound, shaking the beech -and box trees and setting all the golden azalea heads in a sudden -agitation. It passed as swiftly as it came. The peace of the June morning -again descended on the mountains. - -It was broken by a wild, half-smothered cry,--a cry of genuine terror. - -For O'Malley had turned to Rostom with some word that here, in this -figure, lay the explanation of the animal's excitement in the night, -when he saw that the peasant, white as chalk beneath the tangle of black -hair that covered his face, had stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth -was open, his arms upraised to shield; he was staring fixedly in the same -direction as himself. The next instant he was on his knees, bowing and -scraping toward Mecca, groaning, hiding his eyes with both hands. The -sack he held had toppled over; the cheese and flour rolled upon the -ground; and from the horse came that long-drawn whinnying of the -night. - -There was a momentary impression--entirely in the Irishman's mind, of -course,--that the whole landscape veiled a giant, rushing movement that -passed across it like a wave. The surface of the earth, it seemed, ran -softly quivering, as though that wind had stirred response together with -the trembling of the million leaves ... before it settled back again to -stillness. It passed in the flash of an eyelid. The earth lay tranquil in -repose. - -But, though the suddenness of the stranger's arrival might conceivably -have startled the ignorant peasant, with nerves already overwrought -from the occurrence of the night, O'Malley was not prepared for the -violence of the man's terror as shown by the immediate sequel. For after -several moments' prayer and prostration, with groans half smothered -against the very ground, he sprang impetuously to his feet again, turned -to his employer with eyes that gleamed wildly in that face of chalk, -cried out--the voice thick with the confusion of his fear--"It is the -Wind! _They_ come; from the mountains _they_ come! Older than the stones -they are. Save yourself.... Hide your eyes ... fly...!"--and was gone. -Like a deer he went. He waited neither for food nor payment, but flung -the great black burka round his face--and ran. - -And to O'Malley, bereft of all power of movement as he watched in -complete bewilderment, one thing seemed clear: the man went in this -extraordinary fashion because he was afraid of something he had _felt_, -not seen. For as he ran with wild and leaping strides, he did not run -away from the figure. He took the direction straight toward the spot -where the stranger still stood motionless as a tree. So close he passed -him that he must almost have brushed his very shoulder. He did not -see him. - -The last thing the Irishman noted was that in his violence the man -had dropped the yellow bashlik from his head. O'Malley saw him stoop -with a flying rush to pick it up. He seemed to catch it as it fell. - -And then the big figure moved. He came slowly forward from among -the trees, his hands outstretched in greeting, on his great visage a -shining smile of welcome that seemed to share the sunrise. In that moment -for the Irishman all was forgotten as though unknown, unseen, save the -feelings of extraordinary happiness that filled him to the brim. - - - - -XXX - -"The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for -the title of their order, 'Those who are free throughout the world.' They -are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us much more -service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, -when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of -any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a -man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he -forgets the authors and the public, and heeds only this one dream, which -holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, and you may have all -the arguments and histories and criticism." - ---EMERSON - - -To criticize, deny, perhaps to sneer, is no very difficult or uncommon -function of the mind, and the story as I first heard him tell it, -lying there in the grass beyond the Serpentine that summer evening, -roused in me, I must confess, all of these very ordinary faculties. Yet, -as I listened to his voice that mingled with the rustle of the poplars -overhead, and watched his eager face and gestures, it came to me dimly -that a man's mistakes may be due to his attempting bigger things than -his little critic ever dreamed perhaps. And gradually I shared the vision -that this unrhyming poet by my side had somehow lived out in action. - -Inner experience for him was ever the reality--not the mere forms -or deeds that clothe it in partial physical expression. - -There was no question, of course, that he had actually met this big, -inarticulate Russian on the steamer; that Stahl's part in the account was -unvarnished; that the boy had fallen on the deck from heart disease; and -that, after an interval, chance had brought O'Malley and the father -together again in this valley of the Central Caucasus. All that was as -literal as the superstitious terror of the Georgian peasant. Further, -that the Russian possessed precisely those qualities of powerful sympathy -with the other's hidden longings which the subtle-minded Celt had been -so quick to appropriate--this, too, was literal enough. Here, doubtless, -was the springboard whence he leaped into the stream of this -quasi-spiritual adventure with an eagerness of fine, whole-hearted belief -which must make this dull world a very wonderful place indeed to those -who know it; for it is the visioned faculty of correlating the commonest -event with the procession of august Powers that pass ever to and fro -behind life's swaying curtain, and of divining in the most ordinary of -yellow buttercups the golden fires of a dropped star. - -Again, for Terence O'Malley there seemed no definite line that marked off -one state of consciousness from another, just as there seems no given -instant when a man passes actually from sleep to waking, from pleasure to -pain, from joy to grief. There is, indeed, no fixed threshold between the -states of normal and abnormal consciousness. In this stranger he imagined -a sense of companionship that by some magic of alchemy transformed his -deep loneliness into joy, and satisfied his passionate yearnings by -bringing their subjective fulfillment within range. To have found -acceptance in his sight was thus a revolutionary fact in his existence. -While a part of my mind may have labeled it all as creative imagination, -another part recognized it as plainly true--because his being lived it -out without the least denial. - -He, at any rate, was not inventing; nor ever knew an instant's doubt. -He simply told me what had happened. The discrepancies--the omissions -in his written account especially--were simply due, I feel, to the -fact that his skill in words was not equal to the depth and brilliance of -the emotions that he experienced. But the fact remains: he did experience -them. His fairy tale convinced. - -His faith had made him whole--one with the Earth. The sense of -disunion between his outer and his inner self was gone. - -And now, as these two began their journey together into the wilder -region of these stupendous mountains, O'Malley says he realized clearly -that the change he had dreaded as an "inner catastrophe" simply would -mean the complete and final transfer of his consciousness from the -"without" to the "within." It would involve the loss only of what -constituted him a person among the external activities of the world -today. He would lose his life to find it. The deeper self thus quickened -by the stranger must finally assert its authority over the rest. To join -these Urwelt beings and share their eternal life of beauty close to the -Earth herself, he must shift the center. Only thus could he enter the -state before the "Fall"--that ancient Garden of the World-Soul, walled-in -so close behind his daily life--and know deliverance from the discontent -of modern conditions that so distressed him. - -To do this temporarily, perhaps, had long been possible to him--in -dream, in reverie, in those imaginative trances when he almost seemed -to leave his body altogether; but to achieve it permanently was something -more than any such passing disablement of the normal self. It involved, -he now saw clearly, that which he had already witnessed in the boy: the -final release of his Double in so-called death. - -Thus, as they made their way northwards, nominally toward the mighty -Elbruz and the borders of Swanetia, the Irishman knew in his heart that -they in reality came nearer to the Garden long desired, and to those -lofty Gates of horn and ivory that hitherto he had never found--because -he feared to let himself go. Often he had camped beneath the walls, had -smelt the flowers, heard the songs, and even caught glimpses of the life -that moved so gorgeously within. But the Gates themselves had never shone -for him, even against the sky of dream, because his vision had been -clouded by alarm. They swung, it had seemed to him before, in only one -direction--for those who enter: he had always hesitated, lost his way, -returned.... And many, like him, make the same mistake. Once in, there -need be no return, for in reality the walls spread outwards and--enclose -the entire world. - -Civilization and Humanity, the man of smaller vision had called out -to him as passwords to safety. Simplicity and Love, he now discovered, -were the truer clues. His big friend in silence taught him. Now he knew. - -For in that little hamlet their meeting had taken place--in silence. -No actual speech had passed. "You go--so?" the Russian conveyed by -a look and by a movement of his whole figure, indicating the direction; -and to the Irishman's assenting inclination of the head he made an -answering gesture that merely signified compliance with a plan already -known to both. "We go, together then." And, there and then, they -started, side by side. - -The suddenness of this concerted departure only seemed strange afterwards -when O'Malley looked back upon it, for at the time it seemed as -inevitable as being obliged to swim once the dive is taken. He stood -upon a pinnacle whence lesser details were invisible; he knew a kind of -exaltation--of loftier vision. Small facts that ordinarily might fill the -day with trouble sank below the horizon then. He did not even notice -that they went without food, horse, or blankets. It was reckless, -unrestrained, and utterly unhindered, this free setting-forth together. -Thus might he have gone upon a journey with the wind, the sunshine, or -the rain. Departure with a thought, a dream, a fancy could not have been -less unhampered. - -The only detail of his outer world that lingered--and that, already -sinking out of sight like a stone into deep water--was the image of the -running peasant. For a moment he recalled the picture. He saw the man -in the act of stooping after the fallen bashlik. He saw him seize it, -lift it to his head again. But the picture was small--already very far -away. Before the bashlik actually reached the head, the detail dipped -into mist and vanished.... - - - - -XXXI - - -It was spring--and the flutes of Pan played everywhere. The radiance -of the world's first morning shone undimmed. Life flowed and sang and -danced, abundant and untamed. It bathed the mountains and that sky of -stainless blue. It bathed him too. Dipped, washed, and shining in it, he -walked the Earth as she lay radiant in her early youth. The crystal -presence of her everlasting Spring flew laughing through a world of light -and flowers--flowers that none could ever pluck to die, light that could -never fade to darkness within walls and roofs. - -All day they wound easily, as though on winged feet, through the steep -belt of box and beech woods, and in sparkling brilliant heat across -open spaces where the azaleas shone; a cooling wind, fresh as the dawn, -seemed ever to urge them forwards. The country, for all its huge scale -and wildness, was park-like; the giant, bushy trees wore an air of being -tended by the big winds that ran with rustling music among their waving -foliage. Between the rhododendrons were avenues of turf, broad-gladed -pathways, yet older than the moon, from which a thousand gardeners -of wind and dew had gone but a moment before to care for others -further on. Over all brimmed up some primal, old-world beauty of a -simple life--some immemorial soft glory of the dawn. - -Closer and closer, deeper and deeper, ever swifter, ever more direct, -O'Malley passed down toward the heart of his mother's being. Along -the tenderest pathways of his inner being, so wee, so soft, so simple -that for most men they lie ignored or overgrown, he slipped with joy a -little nearer--one stage perhaps--toward Reality. - -Pan "blew in power" across these Caucasian heights and valleys. - -Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! - Piercing sweet by the river! -Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! -The sun on the hill forgot to die, -And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly - Came back to dream on the river - -In front his big leader, no longer blundering clumsily as on that toy -steamer with the awkward and lesser motion known to men, pressed -forward with a kind of giant sure supremacy along paths he knew, or -rather over a trackless, pathless world which the great planet had -charted lovingly for his splendid feet. That wind, blowing from the -depths of valleys left long since behind, accompanied them wisely. They -heard, not the faint horns of Elfland faintly blowing, but the blasts of -the _Urwelt_ trumpets growing out of the still distance, nearer, ever -nearer. For leagues below the beech woods poured over the enormous slopes -in a sea of soft green foam, and through the meadow spaces they saw the -sweet nakedness of running water, and listened to its song. At noon they -rested in the greater heat, sleeping beneath the shadow of big rocks; and -sometimes traveled late into the night, when the stars guided them and -they knew the pointing of the winds. The very moonlight then, that -washed this lonely world with silver, sheeting the heights of snow -beyond, was friendly, half divine ... and it seemed to O'Malley that -while they slept they were watched and cared for--as though Others -who awaited had already come halfway out to meet them. - -And ever, more and more, the passion of his happiness increased; he -knew himself complete, fulfilled, made whole. It was as though his Self -were passing outwards into hundreds of thousands, and becoming -countless as the sand. He was everywhere; in everything; shining, -singing, dancing.... With the ancient woods he breathed; slipped with the -streams down the still darkened valleys; called from each towering -summit to the Sun; and flew with all the winds across the immense, -untrodden slopes. About him lay this whole spread being of the flowered -Caucasus, huge and quiet, drinking in the sunshine at its leisure. But it -lay also _within_ himself, for his expanding consciousness included and -contained it. Through it--this early potent Mood of Nature--he passed -toward the Soul of the Earth within, even as a child, caught by a mood of -winning tenderness in its mother, passes closer to the heart that gave it -birth. Some central love enwrapped him. He knew the surrounding power of -everlasting arms. - - - - -XXXII - -"Inward, ay, deeper far than love or scorn, - Deeper than bloom of virtue, stain of sin, - Rend thou the veil and pass alone within, - Stand naked there and know thyself forlorn. - Nay! in what world, then, spirit, vast thou born? - Or to what World-Soul art thou entered in? - Feel the Self fade, feel the great life begin. - With Love re-rising in the cosmic morn. - The Inward ardor yearns to the inmost goal; - The endless goal is one with the endless way; - From every gulf the tides of Being roll, - From every zenith burns the indwelling day, - And life in Life has drowned thee and soul in Soul; - And these are God and thou thyself art they." - ---F.W.H. MYERS. From "A Cosmic Outlook" - - -The account of what followed simply swept me into fairyland, yet a -Fairyland that is true because it lives in every imaginative heart that -does not dream itself shut off from the Universe in some wee compartment -all alone. - -If O'Malley's written account, and especially his tumbled notebooks, -left me bewildered and confused, the fragments that he told me brought -this sense of an immense, sweet picture that actually existed. I caught -small scenes of it, set in some wild high light. Their very incoherence -conveyed the gorgeous splendor of the whole better than any neat ordered -sequence could possibly have done. - -Climax, in the story-book meaning, there was none. The thing flowed -round and round forever. A sense of something eternal wrapped me as -I listened; for his imagination set the whole adventure out of time and -space, and I caught myself dreaming too. "A thousand years in His -sight"--I understood the old words as refreshingly new--might be a day. -Thus felt that monk, perhaps, for whose heart a hundred years had passed -while he listened to the singing of a little bird. - -My practical questions--it was only at the beginning that I was dull -enough to ask them--he did not satisfy, because he could not. There -was never the least suggestion of the artist's mere invention. - -"You really felt the Earth about and in you," I had asked, "much as -one feels the presence of a friend and living person?" - -"Drowned in her, yes, as in the thoughts and atmosphere of some one -awfully loved." His voice a little trembled as he said it. - -"So speech unnecessary?" - -"Impossible--fatal," was the laconic, comprehensive reply, "limiting: -destructive even." - -That, at least, I grasped: the pitifulness of words before that love by -which self goes wholly lost in the being of another, adrift yet cared -for, gathered all wonderfully in. - -"And your Russian friend--your leader?" I ventured, haltingly. - -His reply was curiously illuminating:-- - -"Like some great guiding Thought within her mind--some flaming -_motif_--interpreting her love and splendor--leading me straight." - -"As you felt at Marseilles, a clue--a vital clue?" For I remembered -the singular phrase he had used in the notebook. - -"Not a bad word," he laughed; "certainly, as far as it goes, not a wrong -one. For he--_it_--was at the same time within myself. We merged, as -our life grew and spread. We swept things along with us from the banks. -We were in flood together," he cried. "We drew the landscape with us!" - -The last words baffled me; I found no immediate response. He pushed -away the plates on the table before us, where we had been lunching in -the back room of a dingy Soho restaurant. We now had the place to -ourselves. He drew his chair a little nearer. - -"Don't ye see--our journey also was _within_," he added abruptly. - -The pale London sunlight came through the window across chimneys, -dreary roofs, courtyards. Yet where it touched his face it seemed at -once to shine. His voice was warm and eager. I caught from him, as it -were, both heat and light. - -"You moved actually, though, over country--?" - -"While at the same time we moved within, advanced, sank deeper," -he returned; "call it what you will. Our condition moved. There was this -correspondence between the two. Over her face we walked, yet into her -as well. We 'traveled' with One greater than ourselves, both caught and -merged in her, in utter sympathy with one another as with herself..." - -This stopped me dead. I could not pretend more than a vague sympathetic -understanding with such descriptions of a mystical experience. Nor, it -was clear, did he expect it of me. Even his own heart was troubled, and -he knew he spoke of things that only few may deal with sanely, still -fewer hear with patience. - -But, oh, that little room in Greek Street smelt of forests, dew, and -dawn as he told it,--that dear wayward Child of Earth! For "his voice -fell, like music that makes giddy the dim brain, faint with intoxication -of keen joy." I watched those delicate hands he spread about him -through the air; the tender, sensitive lips, the light blue eyes that -glowed. I noted the real strength in the face,--a sort of nobility it -was--his shabby suit of grey, his tie never caught properly in the -collar, the frayed cuffs, and the enormous boots he wore even in -London--"policeman boots" as we used to call them with a laugh. - -So vivid was the picture that he painted! Almost, it seemed, I knew -myself the pulse of that eternal Spring beneath our feet, beating in vain -against the suffocating weight of London's bricks and pavements laid -by civilization--the Earth's delight striving to push outwards into -visible form as flowers. She flashed some scrap of meaning thus into -me, though blunted on the way, I fear, and crudely paraphrased. - -Yes, as he talked across the airless gloom of that little back room, in -some small way I caught the splendor of his vision. Behind the words, -I caught it here and there. My own wee world extended. My being stretched -to understand him and to net in fugitive fragments the scenes of wonder -that he knew complete. - -Perhaps his larger consciousness fringed my own to "bruise" it, as he -claimed the Earth had done to him, so that I glimpsed in tinier measure -an experience that in himself blazed whole and thundering. It was, I -must admit, exalting and invigorating, if a little breathless; and the -return to streets and omnibuses painful--a descent to ugliness and -disappointment. For things I can hardly understand now, even in my -own descriptions of them, seemed at the time quite clear--or clear-ish -at any rate. Whereas normally I could never have compassed them at all. - -It taught me: that, at least, I know. In some spiritual way I quickened -to the view that all great teaching really comes in some such curious -fashion--via a temporary stretching or extension of the "heart" to -receive it. The little normal self is pushed aside to make room, even to -the point of loss, in order to contain it. Later, the consciousness -contracts again. But it has expanded--and there has been growth. Was -this, I wondered, perhaps what mystics speak of when they say the -personal life must slip aside, be trampled on, submerged, before there -can be room for the divine Presences...? - -At any rate, as he talked there over coffee that grew cold and cigarette -smoke that made the air yet thicker than it naturally was, his words -conveyed with almost grandeur of conviction this reality of a profound -inner experience. I shared in some faint way its truth and beauty, so -that when I saw it in his written form I marveled to find the thing so -thin and cold and dwindled. The key his personal presence supplied, of -guidance and interpretation, of course was gone. - - - - -XXXIII - -"Why, what is this patient entrance into Nature's deep resources - But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane? - When we drive out, from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses, - Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane?" - ---E.B. BROWNING - - -The "Russian" led. - -O'Malley styled him thus to the end for want of a larger word, perhaps--a -word to phrase the inner and the outer. Although the mountains were -devoid of trails, he seemed always certain of his way. An absolute -sense of orientation possessed him; or, rather, the whole earth became -a single pathway. Her being, in and about their hearts, concealed no -secrets; he knew the fresh, cool water-springs as surely as the corners -where the wild honey gathered. It seemed as natural that the bees should -leave them unmolested, giving them freely of their store, as that the -savage dogs in the aouls, or villages, they passed so rarely now, should -refrain from attack. Even the peasants shared with them some common, -splendid life. Occasionally they passed an Ossetian on horseback, a rifle -swung across his saddle, a covering burka draping his shoulders and the -animal's haunches in a single form that seemed a very outgrowth of the -mountains. But not even a greeting was exchanged. They passed in silence; -often very close, as though they did not see these two on foot. And once -or twice the horses reared and whinnied, while their riders made the -signs of their religion.... Sentries they seemed. But for the password -known to both they would have stopped the travelers. In these forsaken -fastnesses mere unprotected wandering means death. Yet to the happy -Irishman there never came a thought of danger or alarm. All was a portion -of himself, and no man can be afraid of his own hands or feet. Their -convoy was immense, invisible, a guaranteed security of the vast Earth -herself. No little personal injury could pass so huge defense. Others, -armed with a lesser security of knives and guns and guides, would -assuredly have been turned back, or had they shown resistance, would -never have been heard to tell the tale. Dr. Stahl and the fur-merchant, -for instance-- - -But such bothering little thoughts with their hard edges no longer -touched reality; they spun away and found no lodgment; they were--untrue; -false items of some lesser world unrealized. - -For, in proportion as he fixed his thoughts successfully on outward and -physical things, the world wherein he now walked grew dim: he missed the -path, stumbled, saw trees and flowers indistinctly, failed to hear -properly the call of birds and wind, to feel the touch of sun; and, -most unwelcome of all,--was aware that his leader left him, dwindling -in size, dropping away somehow among shadows far behind or far ahead. - -The inversion was strangely complete: what men called solid, real, and -permanent he now knew as the veriest shadows of existence, fleeting, -unsatisfactory, false. - -Their dreary make-believe had all his life oppressed him. He now knew -why. Men, driving their forces outwards for external possessions had lost -the way so utterly. It truly was amazing. He no longer quite understood -how such feverish strife was possible to intelligent beings: the -fur-merchant, the tourists, his London friends, the great majority of -men and women he had known, pain in their hearts and weariness in -their eyes, the sad strained faces, the furious rush to catch a little -pleasure they deemed joy. It seemed like some wild senseless game that -madness plays. He found it difficult to endow them, one and all, with any -sense of life. He saw them groping in thick darkness, snatching with -hands of shadow at things of even thinner shadow, all moving in a wild -and frantic circle of artificial desires, while just beyond, absurdly -close to many, blazed this great living sunshine of Reality and Peace and -Beauty. If only they would turn--and look _within_--! - -In fleeting moments these sordid glimpses of that dark and shadow-world -still afflicted his outer sight--the nightmare he had left behind. It -played like some gloomy memory through a corner of consciousness not yet -wholly disentangled from it. Already he burned to share his story with -the world...! A few he saw who here and there half turned, touched by a -flashing ray--then rushed away into the old blackness as though -frightened, not daring to escape. False images thrown outward by the -intellect prevented. Stahl he saw ... groping; a soft light of yearning -in his eyes ... a hand outstretched to push the shadows from him, yet -ever gathering them instead.... Men he saw by the million, youth still in -their hearts, yet slaving in darkened trap-like cages not merely to earn -a competency but to pile more gold for things not really wanted; faces -of greed round gambling-tables; the pandemonium of Exchanges; even fair -women, playing Bridge through all a summer afternoon--the strife and lust -and passion for possessions degrading every heart, choking the channels -of simplicity.... Over the cities of the world he heard the demon -Civilization sing its song of terror and desolation. Its music of -destruction shook the nations. He saw the millions dance. And mid the -bewildering ugly thunder of that sound few could catch the small sweet -voice played by the Earth upon the little Pipes of Pan... the fluting -call of Nature to the Simple Life--which is the Inner. - -For now, as he moved closer to the Earth, deeper ever deeper into the -enfolding moods of her vast collective consciousness, he drew nearer -to the Reality that satisfies. He approached that center where outward -activity is less, yet energy and vitality far greater--because it is at -rest. Here he met things halfway, as it were, _en route_ for the outer -physical world where they would appear later as "events," but not yet -emerged, still alive and breaking with their undischarged and natural -potencies. Modern life, he discerned, dealt only with these forces when -they had emerged, masquerading at the outer rim of life as complete -embodiments, whereas actually they are but partial and symbolical -expressions of their eternal prototypes behind. And men today were busy -at this periphery only, touch with the center lost, madly consumed with -the unimportant details that concealed the inner glory. It was the spirit -of the age to mistake the outer shell for the inner reality. He at last -understood the reason of his starved loneliness amid the stupid uproar -of latter-day life, why he distrusted "Civilization," and stood apart. -His yearnings were explained. His heart dwelt ever in the Golden Age of -the Earth's first youth, and at last--he was coming home. - -Like mud settling in dirty water, the casual realities of that outer life -all sank away. He grew clear within, one with the primitive splendor, -beauty, grace of a fresh world. Over his inner self, flooding slowly the -passages and cellars, those subterranean ways that honeycomb the dim-lit -foundations of personality, this tide of power rose. Filling chamber -after chamber, melting down walls and ceiling, eating away divisions -softly and irresistibly, it climbed in silence, merging all moods and -disunion of his separate Selves into the single thing that made him -comprehensible to himself and able to know the Earth as Mother. He -saw himself whole; he knew himself divine. A strange tumult as of some -ecstasy of old remembrance invaded him. He dropped back into a more -spacious scale of time, long long ago when a month might be a moment, -or a thousand years pass round him as a single day.... - -The qualities of all the Earth lay too, so easily contained, within -himself. He understood that old legend by which man the microcosm -represents and sums up Earth, the macrocosm in himself, so that Nature -becomes the symbol and interpreter of his inner being. The strength -and dignity of the trees he drew into himself; the power of the wind was -his; with his unwearied feet ran all the sweet and facile swiftness of -the rivulets, and in his thoughts the graciousness of flowers, the wavy -softness of the grass, the peace of open spaces and the calm of that vast -sky. The murmur of the _Urwelt_ was in his blood, and in his heart the -exaltation of her golden Mood of Spring. - -How, then, could speech be possible, since both shared this common life? -The communion with his friend and leader was too profound and perfect -for any stammering utterance in the broken, partial symbols known as -language. This was done for them: the singing of the birds, the -wind-voices, the rippling of water, the very humming of the myriad -insects even, and rustling of the grass and leaves, shaped all they felt -in some articulate expression that was right, complete, and adequate. The -passion of the larks set all the sky to music, and songs far sweeter than -the nightingales' made every dusk divine. - -He understood now that laborious utterance of his friend upon the -steamer, and why his difficulty with words was more than he could -overcome. - -Like a current in the sea he still preserved identity, yet knew the -freedom of a boundless being. And meanwhile the tide was ever rising. -With this singular companion he neared that inner realization which -should reveal them as they were--Thoughts in the Earth's old -Consciousness too primitive, too far away, too vital and terrific to be -confined in any outward physical expression of the "civilized" world -today.... The earth shone, glittered, sang, holding them close to the -rhythm of her gigantic heart. Her glory was their own. In the blazing -summer of the inner life they floated, happy, caught away, at peace ... -emanations of her living Self. - - * * * * * - -The valleys far below were filled with mist, cutting them off literally -from the world of men, but the beauty of the upper mountains grew more -and more bewilderingly enticing. The scale was so immense, while the -brilliant clearness of the air brought distance close before the eyes, -altered perspective, and robbed "remote" and "near" of any definite -meaning. Space fled away. It shifted here and there at pleasure, -according as they felt. It was within them, not without. They passed, -dispersed and swift about the entire landscape, a very part of it, -diffused in terms of light and air and color, scattered in radiance, -distributed through flowers, spread through the sky and grass and -forests. Space is a form of thought. But they no longer "thought": they -felt.... O, that prodigious, clean, and simple Feeling of the Earth! Love -that redeems and satisfies! Power that fills and blesses! Electric -strength that kills the germ of separateness, making whole! The medicine -of the world! - -For days and nights it was thus--or was it years and minutes?--while -they skirted the slopes and towers of the huge Dykh-Taou, and Elbrous, -supreme and lonely in the heavens, beckoned solemnly. The snowy -Kochtan-Taou rolled past, yet through, them; Kasbek superbly thundered; -hosts of lesser summits sang in the dawn and whispered to the -stars. And longing sank away--impossible. - -"My boy, my boy, could you only have been with me...!" broke his -voice across the splendid dream, bringing me back to the choking, dingy -room I had forgotten. It was like a cry--a cry of passionate yearning. - -"I'm with you now," I murmured, some similar rising joy half breaking in -my breast. "That's something--" - -He sighed in answer. "Something, perhaps. But I have got it always; it's -all still part of me. Oh, oh! that I could give it to the world and lift -the ache of all humanity...!" His voice trembled. I saw the moisture of -immense compassion in his eyes. I felt myself swim out into universal -being. - -"Perhaps," I stammered half beneath my breath, "perhaps some day you -may...!" - -He shook his head. His face turned very sad. - -"How should they listen, much less understand? Their energies drive -outwards, and separation is their God. There is no 'money in it'...!" - - - - -XXXIV - -"Oh! whose heart is not stirred with tumultuous joy when the intimate -Life of Nature enters into his soul with all its plenitude, ... when that -mighty sentiment for which language has no other name than Love is -diffused in him, like some powerful all-dissolving vapor; when he, -shivering with sweet terror, sinks into the dusky, enticing bosom of -Nature; when the meager personality loses itself in the overpowering -waves of passion, and nothing remains but the focal point of the -incommensurable generative Force, an engulfing vortex in the ocean?" - ---NOVALIS, _Disciples at Sais._ Translated by U.C.B. - - -Early in the afternoon they left the bigger trees behind, and passed -into that more open country where the shoulders of the mountains were -strewn with rhododendrons. These formed no continuous forest, but -stood about in groups some twenty-five feet high, their rounded masses -lighted on the surface with fires of mauve and pink and purple. When -the wind stirred them, and the rattling of their stiff leaves was heard, -it seemed as if the skin of the mountains trembled to shake out colored -flames. The air turned radiant through a mist of running tints. - -Still climbing, they passed along broad glades of turfy grass between -the groups. More rapidly now, O'Malley says, went forward that inner -change of being which accompanied the progress of their outer selves. -So intimate henceforth was this subtle correspondence that the very -landscape took the semblance of their feelings. They moved as -"emanations" of the landscape. Each melted in the other, dividing lines -all vanished. - -Their union with the Earth approached this strange and sweet fulfillment. - -And so it was that, though at this height the vestiges of bird and -animal life were wholly gone, there grew more and more strongly the -sense that, in their further depths and shadows, these ancient bushes -screened Activities even more ancient than themselves. Life, only -concealed because they had not reached its plane of being, pulsed -everywhere about their pathway, immense in power, moving swiftly, very -grand and very simple, and sometimes surging close, seeking to draw them -in. More than once, as they moved through glade and clearing, the -Irishman knew thrills of an intoxicating happiness, as this abundant, -driving life brushed past him. It came so close, it glided before his -eyes, yet still was viewless. It strode behind him and before, peered -down through space upon him, lapped him about with the stir of mighty -currents. The deep suction of its invitation caught his soul, urging the -change within himself more quickly forward. Huge and delightful, he -describes it, awful, yet bringing no alarm. - -He was always on the point of seeing. Surely the next turning would -reveal; beyond the next dense, tangled group would come--disclosure; -behind that clustered mass of purple blossoms, shaking there mysteriously -in the wind, some half-veiled countenance of splendor watched -and welcomed! Before his face passed swift, deific figures, tall, erect, -compelling, charged with this ancient, golden life that could never -wholly pass away. And only just beyond the fringe of vision. Vision -already strained upon the edge. His consciousness stretched more and -more to reach them, while They came crowding near to let him know -inclusion. - -These projections of the Earth's old consciousness moved thick and -soft about them, eternal in their giant beauty. Soon he would know, -perhaps, the very forms in which she had projected them--dear portions -of her streaming life the earliest races half divined and worshipped, and -never quite withdrawn. Worship could still entice them out. A single -worshipper sufficed. For worship meant retreat into the heart where still -they dwelt. And he had loved and worshipped all his life. - -And always with him, now at his side or now a little in advance, his -leader moved in power, with vigorous, springing gestures like to dancing, -singing that old tuneless song of the wind, happier even than himself. - -The splendor of the _Urwelt_ closed about them. They drew nearer to -the Gates of that old Garden, the first Time ever knew, whose frontiers -were not less than the horizons of the entire world. For this lost Eden -of a Golden Age when "first God dawned on chaos" still shone within -the soul as in those days of innocence before the "Fall," when men first -separated themselves from their great Mother. - -A little before sunset they halted. A hundred yards above the -rhododendron forest, in a clear wide space of turf that ran for leagues -among grey boulders to the lips of the eternal snowfields, they waited. -Through a gap of sky, with others but slightly lower than himself, the -pyramid of Kasbek, grim and towering, stared down upon them, dreadfully -close though really miles away. At their feet yawned the profound -valley they had climbed. Halfway into it, unable to reach the depths, -the sun's last rays dropped shafts like rivers slanting. Already in soft -troops the shadows crept downwards from the eastern-facing summits -overhead. - -Out of these very shadows Night drew swiftly down about the world, -building with her masses of silvery architecture a barrier that rose to -heaven. These two lay down beside it. Beyond it spread that shining -Garden...only the shadow-barrier between. - -With the rising of the moon this barrier softened marvelously, letting -the starbeams in. It trembled like a line of wavering music in the wind -of night. It settled downwards, shaking a little, toward the ground, -while just above them came a curving inwards like a bay of darkness, with -overhead two stately towers, their outline fringed with stars. - -"The Gateway...!" whispered something through the mountains. - -It may have been the leader's voice; it may have been the Irishman's own -leaping thought; it may have been merely a murmur from the rhododendron -leaves below. It came sifting gently through the shadows. O'Malley knew. -He followed his leader higher. Just beneath this semblance of an -old-world portal which Time could neither fashion nor destroy, they lay -upon the earth--and waited. Beside them shone the world, dressed by the -moon in silver. The wind stood still to watch. The peak of Kasbek from -his cloudy distance listened too. - -For, floating upwards across the spaces came a sound of simple, -old-time piping--the fluting music of a little reed. It drew near, -stopped for a moment as though the player watched them; then, with a -plunging swiftness, passed off through starry distance up among the -darker mountains. The lost, forsaken Asian valley covered them. Nowhere -were they extraneous to it. They slept. And while they slept, they moved -across the frontiers of fulfillment. - -The moon-blanched Gate of horn and ivory swung open. The consciousness -of the Earth possessed them. They passed within. - - - - -XXXV - -"For of old the Sun, our sire, - Came wooing the mother of men, - Earth, that was virginal then, -Vestal fire to his fire. -Silent her bosom and coy, - But the strong god sued and press'd; -And born of their starry nuptial joy - Are all that drink of her breast. - -"And the triumph of him that begot, - And the travail of her that bore, - Behold they are evermore -As warp and weft in our lot. -We are children of splendor and flame, - Of shuddering, also, and tears. -Magnificent out of the dust we came, - And abject from the spheres. - -"O bright irresistible lord! - We are fruit of Earth's womb, each one, - And fruit of thy loins, O Sun, -Whence first was the seed outpour'd. -To thee as our Father we bow, - Forbidden thy Father to see, -Who is older and greater than thou, as thou - Art greater and older than we." - ---WILLIAM WATSON, "Ode in May" - - -Very slowly the dawn came. The sky blushed rose, trembled, flamed. A -breath of wind stirred the vapors that far below sheeted the surface -of the Black Sea. But it was still in that gentle twilight before -the actual color comes that O'Malley found he was lying with his eyes -wide open, watching the rhododendrons. He may have slept meanwhile, -though "sleep," he says, involving loss of consciousness, seemed no -right description. A sense of interval there was at any rate, a -"transition-blank,"--whatever that may mean--he phrased it in the -writing. - -And, watching the rhododendron forest a hundred yards below, he saw it -move. Through the dim light this movement passed and ran, here, there, -and everywhere. A curious soft sound accompanied it that made him -remember the Bible phrase of wind "going in the tops of the mulberry -trees." Hushed, swift, elusive murmur, it passed about him through the -dusk. He caught it next behind him and, turning, noticed groups upon the -slopes,--groups that he had not seen the night before. These groups -seemed also now to move; the isolated scattered clusters came together, -merged, ran to the parent forest below, or melted just beyond the line of -vision above. - -The wind sprang up and rattled all the million leaves. That rattling -filled the air, and with it came another, deeper sound like to a sound -of tramping that seemed to shake the earth. Confusion caught him then -completely, for it was as if the mountain-side awoke, rose up, and shook -itself into a wild and multitudinous wave of life. - -At first he thought the wind had somehow torn the rhododendrons loose -from their roots and was strewing them with that tramping sound about the -slopes. But the groups passed too swiftly over the turf for that, swept -completely from their fastenings, while the tramping grew to a roaring as -of cries and voices. That roaring had the quality of the voice that -reached him weeks ago across the AEgean Sea. A strange, keen odor, too, -that was not wholly unfamiliar, moved upon the wind. - -And then he knew that what he had been watching all along were not -rhododendrons at all, but living, splendid creatures. A host of others, -moreover, large ones and small together, stood shadowy in the background, -stamping their feet upon the turf, manes tossing in the early wind, in -their entire mass awful as in their individual outline somehow noble. - -The light spread upwards from the east. With a fire of terrible joy and -wonder in his heart, O'Malley held his breath and stared. The luster of -their glorious bodies, golden bronze in the sunlight, dazed the sight. -He saw the splendor of ten hundred velvet flanks in movement, with here -and there the uprising whiteness of a female outline that flashed and -broke above the general mass like foam upon a great wave's crest--figures -of incomparable grace and power; the sovereign, upright carriage; the -rippling muscles upon massive limbs, and shoulders that held defiant -strength and softness in exquisite combination. And then he heard huge -murmurs of their voices that filled the dawn, aged by lost thousand -years, and sonorous as the booming of the sea. A cry that was like -singing escaped him. He saw them rise and sweep away. There was -a rush of magnificence. They cantered--wonderfully. They were gone. - -The roar of their curious commotion traveled over the mountains, -dying into distance very swiftly. The rhododendron forest that had -concealed their approach resumed its normal aspect, but burning now -with colors innumerable as the sunrise caught its thousand blossoms. -And O'Malley understood that during "sleep" he had passed with his -companion through the gates of ivory and horn, and stood now within -the first Garden of the early world. All frontiers crossed, all -barriers behind, he stood within the paradise of his heart's desire. -The Consciousness of the Earth included him. These were early forms -of life she had projected--some of the living prototypes of legend, -myth, and fable--embodiments of her first manifestations of -consciousness, and eternal, accessible to every heart that holds a -true and passionate worship. All his life this love of Nature, which -was worship, had been his. It now fulfilled itself. Merged by love -into the consciousness of the Being loved, he _felt_ her -thoughts, her powers, and manifestations of life as his own. - -In a flash, of course, this all passed clearly before him; but there -was no time to dwell upon it. For the activity of his companion had -likewise become suddenly tremendous. He had risen into complete -revelation at last. His own had called him. He was off to join his -kind. - -The transformation came upon both of them, it seems, at once, but -in that moment of bewilderment, the Irishman only realized it first in -his leader. - -For on the edge of the advancing sunlight first this Cosmic Being -crouched, then rose with alert and springing movement, leaping to his -feet in a single bound that propelled him with a stride of more than a -man's two limbs. His great sides quivered as he shook himself. A roar, -similar to that sound the distance already swallowed, rolled forth -into the air. With head thrown back, chest forward, too, for all the -backward slant of the mighty shoulders, he stood there, grandly -outlined, pushing the wind before him. The great brown eyes shone -with the joy of freedom and escape--a superb and regal transformation. - -Urged by the audacity of his strange excitement, the Irishman obeyed -an impulse that came he knew not whence. The single word sprang to -his lips before he could guess its meaning, much less hold it back. - -"Lapithae...!" he cried aloud; "Lapithae...!" - -The stalwart figure turned with an awful spring as though it would -trample him to the ground. A moment the brown eyes flamed with a light of -battle. Then, with another roar, and a gesture that was somehow both huge -and simple, he seemed to rise and paw the air. The next second this -figure of the _Urwelt_, come once more into its own, bent down and -forward, leaped wonderfully--then, cantering, raced away across the -slopes to join his kind. He went like a shape of wind and cloud. The -heritage of racial memory was his, and certain words remained still -vividly evocative. That old battle with the Lapithae was but one item of -the scenes of ancient splendor lying pigeon-holed in his mighty Mother's -consciousness. The instant he had called, the Irishman himself lay caught -in lost memory's tumultuous whirl. The lonely world about him seemed of a -sudden magnificently peopled--sky, woods, and torrents. - -He watched a moment the fierce rapidity with which he sped toward the -mountains, the sound of his feet already merged in that other, vaster -tramping, and then he turned--to watch himself. For a similar -transformation was going forward in himself, and with the happiness of -wild amazement he saw it. Already, indeed, it was accomplished. All white -and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his -limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream -of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more -capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the -wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew -that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran. - -He ran, yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards -through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours brandishing -his arms he flew with a free, unfettered motion, traversing the surface -of the mother's mind and body. Free of the entire Earth he was. - -And as he raced to join the others, there passed again across his memory -faintly--it was like the little memory of some physical pain almost--the -picture of the boy who swam so strangely in the sea, the picture of the -parent's curious emanations on the deck, and, lastly, of those flying -shapes of cloud and wind his inner vision brought so often speeding over -long, bare hills. This was the final fragment of the outer world that -reached him.... - -He tore along the mountains in the dawn, the awful speed at last -explained. His going made a sound upon the wind, and like the wind -he raced. Far beyond him in the distance, he saw the shadow of that -disappearing host spreading upon the valleys like a mist. Faintly still -he caught their sound of roaring; but it was his own feet now that made -that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf. The landscape moved and opened, -gathering him in.... - -And, hardly had he gone, when there stole upon the place where he -had stood, a sweet and simple sound of music--the little piping of a -reed. It dropped down through the air, perhaps, or came from the forest -edge, or possibly the sunrise brought it--this ancient little sound of -fluting on those Pipes men call the Pipes of Pan.... - - - - -XXXVI - -"Here we but peak and dwindle - The clank of chain and crane, - The whirr of crank and spindle - Bewilder heart and brain; - The ends of our endeavor - Are wealth and fame, - Yet in the still Forever - We're one and all the same; - -"Yet beautiful and spacious - The wise, old world appears. - Yet frank and fair and gracious - Outlaugh the jocund years. - Our arguments disputing, - The universal Pan - Still wanders fluting--fluting-- - Fluting to maid and man. - Our weary well-a-waying - His music cannot still: - Come! let us go a-maying, - And pipe with him our fill." - ---W.E. HENLEY - - -In a detailed description, radiant with a wild loveliness of some -forgotten beauty, and of necessity often incoherent, the Irishman -conveyed to me, sitting in that dreary Soho restaurant, the passion of -his vision. With an astonishing vitality and a wealth of deep conviction -it all poured from his lips. There was no halting and no hesitation. Like -a man in trance he talked, and like a man in trance he lived it over -again while imparting it to me. None came to disturb us in our dingy -corner. Indeed there is no quieter place in all London town than the back -room of these eating-houses of the French Quarter between the hours of -lunch and dinner. The waiters vanish, the "patron" disappears; no -customers come in. But I know surely that its burning splendor came not -from the actual words he used, but was due to definite complete -transference of the vision itself into my own heart. I caught the fire -from his very thought. His heat inflamed my mind. Words, both in the -uttered and the written version, dimmed it all distressingly. - -And the completeness of the transference is proved for me by the fact -that I never once had need to ask a question. I saw and understood it -all as he did. And hours must have passed during the strange recital, for -toward the close people came in and took the vacant tables, the lights -were up, and grimy waiters clattered noisily about with plates and knives -and forks, thrusting an inky carte du jour beneath our very faces. - -Yet how to set it down I swear I know not. Nor he, indeed. The -notebooks that I found in that old sack of Willesden canvas were a -disgrace to any man who bid for sanity,--a disgrace to paper and pencil -too! - -All memory of his former life, it seems, at first, had fallen utterly -away; nothing survived to remind him of it; and thus he lost all standard -of comparison. The state he moved in was too complete to admit of -standards or of critical judgment. For these confine, imprison, and -belittle, whereas he was free. His escape was unconditioned. From the -thirty years of his previous living, no single fragment broke through. -The absorption was absolute. - -"I really do believe and know myself," he said to me across that -spotted table-cloth, "that for the time I was merged into the being of -another, a being immensely greater than myself. Perhaps old Stahl was -right, perhaps old crazy Fechner; and it actually was the consciousness -of the Earth. I can only tell you that the whole experience left no room -in me for other memories; all I had previously known was gone, wiped -clean away. Yet much of what came in its place is beyond me to describe; -and for a curious reason. It's not the size or splendor that prevent the -telling, but rather the sublime simplicity of it all. I know no language -today simple enough to utter it. Far behind words it lies, as difficult -of full recovery as the dreams of deep sleep, as the ecstasy of the -religious, elusive as the mystery of Kubla Khan or the Patmos visions of -St. John. Full recapture, I am convinced, is not possible at all in -words. - -"And at the time it did not seem like vision; it was so natural; -unstudied, unprepared, and ever there; spontaneous too and artless as -a drop of water or a baby's toy. The natural is ever the unchanging. My -God! I tell you, man, it was divine!" - -He made about him a vehement sweeping gesture with his arm which -emphasized more poignantly than speech the contrast he felt here where -we sat--tight, confining walls, small stifling windows, chairs to rest -the body, smothering roof and curtains, doors of narrow entrance and -exit, floors to lift above the sweet surface of the soil,--all of them -artificial barriers to shut out light and separate away from the Earth. -"See what we've come to!" it said plainly. And it included even his -clothes and boots and collar, the ridiculous hat upon the peg, the -unsightly "brolly" in the dingy corner. Had there been room in me for -laughter, I could well have laughed aloud. - - * * * * * - -For as he raced across that stretch of splendid mountainous Earth, -watching the sunrise kiss the valleys and the woods, shaking the dew -from his feet and swallowing the very wind for breath, he realized that -other forms of life similar to his own were everywhere about him--also -moving. - -"They were a part of the Earth even as I was. Here she was crammed -to the brim with them--projections of her actual self and being, -crowded with this incomparable ancient beauty that was strong as her -hills, swift as her running streams, radiant as her wild flowers. Whether -to call them forms or thoughts or feelings, or Powers perhaps, I swear, -old man, I know not. Her Consciousness through which I sped, drowned, -lost, and happy, wrapped us all in together as a mood contains its own -thoughts and feelings. For she _was_ a Being--of sorts. And I _was_ -in her mind, mood, consciousness, call it what you best can. These -other thoughts and presences I felt were the raw material of forms, -perhaps--Forces that when they reach the minds of men must clothe -themselves in form in order to be known, whether they be Dreams, or Gods, -or any other kind of inspiration. Closer than that I cannot get.... I -knew myself within her being like a child, and I felt the deep, eternal -pull--to simple things." - - * * * * * - -And thus the beauty of the early world companioned him, and all the -forgotten gods moved forward into life. They hovered everywhere, -immense and stately. The rocks and trees and peaks that half concealed -them, betrayed at the same time great hints of their mighty gestures. -Near him, they were; he moved toward their region. If definite sight -refused to focus on them the fault was not their own but his. He never -doubted that they could be seen. Yet, even thus partially, they -manifested--terrifically. He was aware of their overshadowing presences. -Sight, after all, was an incomplete form of knowing--a thing he had left -behind--elsewhere. It belonged, with the other limited sense-channels, -to some attenuated dream now all forgotten. Now he knew _all over._ He -himself was of them. - -"I am home!" it seems he cried as he ran cantering across the sunny -slopes. "At last I have found you! Home...!" and the stones shot wildly -from his thundering tread. - -A roar of windy power filled the sky, and far away that echoing -tramping paused to listen. - -"We have called you! Come...!" - -And the forms moved down slowly from their mountainous pedestals; -the woods breathed out a sigh; the running water sang; the slopes -all murmured through their grass and flowers. For a worshipper, strayed -from the outer world of the dead, stood within the precincts of their -ancient temple. He had passed the Angel with the flaming sword those -very dead had set there long ago. The Garden now enclosed him. He -had found the heart of the Earth, his mother. Self-realization in the -perfect union with Nature was fulfilled. He knew the Great At-onement. - - * * * * * - -The quiet of the dawn still lay upon the world; dew sparkled; the air was -keen and fresh. Yet, in spite of all this vast sense of energy, this -vigor and delight, O'Malley no longer felt the least goading of -excitement. There was this animation and this fine delight; but craving -for sensation of any kind, was gone. Excitement, as it tortured men in -that outer world he had left, could not exist in this larger state of -being; for excitement is the appetite for something not possessed, -magnified artificially till it has become a condition of disease. All -that he needed was now contained within himself; he was at-ease; and, -literally, that unrest which men miscall delight could touch him not nor -torture him again. - -If this were death--how exquisite! - -And Time was not a passing thing, for it lay, he says, somehow in an -ocean everywhere, heaped up in gulfs and spaces. It was as though he -could help himself and take it. That morning, had he so wished, could -last forever; he could go backwards and taste the shadows of the night -again, or forward and bask in the glory of hot noon. There were no parts -of things, and so no restlessness, no sense of incompleteness, no -divisions. - -This quiet of the dawn lay in himself, and, since he loved it, lay there, -cool and sweet and sparkling for--years; almost--forever. - - * * * * * - -Moreover, while this giant form of _Urwelt_-life his inner self had -assumed was new, it yet seemed somehow familiar. The speed and weight -and power caused him no distress, there was no detail that he could not -manage easily. To race thus o'er the world, keeping pace with an eternal -dawn, was as simple as for the Earth herself to spin through space. His -union with her was as complete as that. In every item of her being lay -the wonder of her perfect form--a sphere. It was complete. Nothing -could add to it. - -Yet, while all recollection of his former, pettier self was gone, he -began presently to remember--men. Though never in relation to himself, he -retained dimly a picture of that outer world of strife and terror. As a -memory of illness he recalled it--dreadfully, a nightmare fever from -which he had recovered, its horror already fading out. Cities and crowds, -poverty, illness, pain and all the various terror of Civilization, robbed -of the power to afflict, yet still hung hovering about the surface of his -consciousness, though powerless to break his peace. - -For the power to understand it vanished; no part of him knew sympathy -with it; so clearly he now saw himself sharing the Earth, that a vague -wonder filled him when he recalled the mad desires of men to possess -external forms of things. It was amazing and perplexing. How could they -ever have devised such wild and childish efforts--all in the -wrong direction? - -If that outer life were the real one how could any intelligent being -think it worth while to live? How could any thinking man hold up his -head and walk along the street with dignity if that was what he believed? -Was a man satisfied with it worth keeping alive at all? What bigger -scheme could ever use him? The direction of modern life today was -diametrically away from happiness and truth. - -Peace was the word he knew, peace and a singing joy. - - * * * * * - -He played with the Earth's great dawn and raced along these mountains -through her mind. _Of course>_ the hills could dance and sing and clap -their hands. He saw it clear. How could it be otherwise? They were -expressions of her giant moods--what in himself were thoughts--phases -of her ample, surging Consciousness.... - -He passed with the sunlight down the laughing valleys, spread with -the morning wind above the woods, shone on the snowy peaks, and -leaped with rushing laughter among the crystal streams. These were his -swift and darting signs of joy, words of his singing as it were. His main -and central being swung with the pulse of the Earth, too great for any -telling. - -He read the book of Nature all about him, yes, but read it singing. -He understood how this patient Mother hungered for her myriad lost -children, how in the passion of her summers she longed to bless them, -to wake their high yearnings with the sweetness of her springs, and to -whisper through her autumns how she prayed for their return...! - -Instinctively he read the giant Page before him. For "every form in -nature is a symbol of an idea and represents a sign or letter. A -succession of such symbols forms a language; and he who is a true child -of nature may understand this language and know the character of -everything. His mind, becomes a mirror wherein the attributes of natural -things are reflected and enter the field of his consciousness.... For man -himself is but a thought pervading the ocean of mind." - -Whether or not lie remembered these stammering yet pregnant words from -the outer world now left behind, the truth they shadowed forth rose up -and took him ... and so he flowed across the mountains like a thing of -wind and cloud, and so at length came up with the stragglers of that -mighty herd of _Urwelt_ life. He joined them in a river-bed of those -ancient valleys. They welcomed him and took him to themselves. - - * * * * * - -For the particular stratum, as it were, of the Earth's enormous -Collective Consciousness to which he belonged, or rather that part and -corner in which he was first at home, lay with these lesser ancient -forms. Although aware of far mightier expressions of her life, he could -not yet readily perceive or join them. And this was easily comprehensible -by the analogy of his own smaller consciousness. Did not his own mind -hold thoughts of various kinds that could not readily mingle? His -thoughts of play and frolic, for instance, could not combine with the -august and graver sentiments of awe and worship, though both could -dwell together in the same heart. And here apparently, as yet, he only -touched that frolicsome fringe of consciousness that knew these wild -and playful lesser forms. Thus, while he was aware of other more -powerful figures of wonder all about him, he never quite achieved their -full recognition. The ordered, deeper strata of her Consciousness to -which they belonged still lay beyond him. - -Yet everywhere he fringed them. They haunted the entire world. They -brooded hugely with a kind of deep magnificence that was like the slow -brooding of the Seasons; they rose, looming and splendid, through the -air and sky, proud, strong, and tragic. For, standing aloof from all the -rest, in isolation, like dreams in a poet's mind, too potent for -expression, they thus knew tragedy--the tragedy of long neglect and -loneliness. - -Seated on peak and ridge, rising beyond the summits in the clouds, -filling the valleys, spread over watercourse and forest, they passed -their life of lonely majesty--apart, their splendor too remote for him as -yet to share. Long since had Earth withdrawn them from the hearts of men. -Her lesser children knew them no more. But still through the deep -recesses of her further consciousness they thundered and were glad... -though few might hear that thunder, share that awful joy.... - -Even the Irishman--who in ordinary life had felt instinctively that -worship which is close to love, and so to the union that love -brings--even he, in this new-found freedom, only partially discerned -their presences. He felt them now, these stately Powers men once called -the gods, but felt them from a distance; and from a distance, too, they -saw and watched him come. He knew their gorgeous forms half dimmed by -a remote and veiled enchantment; knew that they reared aloft like -ancient towers, ruined by neglect and ignorance, starved and lonely, but -still hauntingly splendid and engaging, still terrifically alive. And it -seemed to him that sometimes their awful eyes flashed with the sunshine -over slope and valley, and that wherever they rested flowers sprang to -life. - -Their nearness sometimes swept him like a storm, and then the entire -herd with which he mingled would stand abruptly still, caught by a wave -of awe and wonder. The host of them stood still upon the grass, their -frolic held a moment, their voices hushed, only deep panting audible -and the soft shuffling of their hoofs among the flowers. They bowed -their splendid heads and waited--while a god went past them.... And -through himself, as witness of the passage, a soft, majestic power also -swept. With the lift of a hurricane, yet with the gentleness of dew, he -felt the noblest in himself irresistibly evoked. It was gone again as -soon as come. It passed. But it left him charged with a regal confidence -and joy. As in the mountains a shower of snow picks out the highest peaks -in white, tracing its course and pattern over the entire range, so in -himself he knew the highest powers--aspirations, yearnings, hopes--raised -into shining, white activity, and by these quickened splendors of -his soul could recognize the nature of the god who came so close. - - * * * * * - -And, keeping mostly to the river-beds, they splashed in the torrents, -played and leaped and cantered. From the openings of many a moist cave -others came to join them. Below a certain level, though, they never went; -the forests knew them not; they loved the open, windy heights. They -turned and circulated as by a common consent, wheeling suddenly together -as if a single desire actuated the entire mass. One instinct spread, as -it were, among the lot, shared instantly, conveying to each at once the -general impulse. Their movements in this were like those of birds whose -flight in coveys obeys the order of a collective consciousness of which -each single one is an item--expressions of one single Bird-Idea behind, -distributed through all. - -And O'Malley without questioning or hesitation obeyed, while yet he was -free to do as he wished alone. To do as they did was the greatest -pleasure, that was all. - -For sometimes with two of them, one fully-formed, the other of lesser -mold--he flew on little journeys of his own. These two seemed nearer -to him than the rest. He felt he knew them and had been with them -before. Their big brown eyes continually sought his own with pleasure. -It almost seemed as if they had all three been separated long away from -one another, and had at last returned. No definite memory of the -interval came back, however; the sea, the steamer, and the journey's -incidents all had faded--part of that world of lesser insignificant dream -where they had happened. But these two kept close to him; they ran and -danced together.... - -The time that passed included many dawns and nights and also many -noons of splendor. It all seemed endless, perfect, and serene. That -anything could finish here did not once occur to him. Complete things -cannot finish. He passed through seas and gulfs of glorious existence. -For the strange thing was that while he only remembered afterwards the -motion, play, and laughter, he yet had these other glimpses here and -there of some ordered and progressive life existing just beyond. It lay -hidden deeper within. He skimmed its surface; but something prevented -his knowing it fully. And the limitation that held him back belonged, -it seemed, to that thin world of trivial dreaming he had left behind. He -had not shaken it off entirely. It still obscured his sight. - -The scale and manner of this greater life faintly reached him, nothing -more. It may be that he only failed to bring back recollection, or it may -be that he did not penetrate deeply enough to know. At any rate, he -recognized that this sudden occasional passing by of vast deific figures -had to do with it, and that all this ocean of Earth's deeper -Consciousness was peopled with forms of life that obeyed some splendid -system of progressive ordered existence. To be gathered up in this one -greater consciousness was not the end.... Rather was it merely the -beginning.... - -Meantime he learned that here, among these lesser thoughts of the great -Mother, all the Pantheons of the world had first their origin--the -Greek, the Eastern, and the Northern too. Here all the gods that men -have ever half divined, still ranged the moods of Her timeless -consciousness. Their train of beauty, too, accompanied them. - - * * * * * - -I cannot half recall the streams of passionate description with which -his words clothed these glowing memories of his vision. Great pictures -of it haunt the background of my mind, pictures that lie in early mists, -framed by the stars and glimmering through some golden, flowered -dawn. Besides the huge outlines that stood breathing in the background -like dark mountains, there flitted here and there strange dreamy forms -of almost impossible beauty, slender as lilies, eyes soft and starry -shining through the dusk, hair flying past them like a rain of summer -flowers. Nymph-like they moved down all the pathways of the Earth's young -mind, singing and radiant, spring blossoms in the Garden of her -Consciousness.... And other forms, more vehement and rude, urged -to and fro across the pictures; crowding the movement; some playful -and protean; some clothed as with trees, or air, or water; and others -dark, remote, and silent, ranging her deeper layers of thought and dream, -known rarely to the outer world at all. - -The rush and glory of it all is more than my mind can deal with. I -gather, though, O'Malley saw no definite forms, but rather knew -"forces," powers, aspects of this Soul of Earth, facets she showed in -long-forgotten days to men. Certainly the very infusoria of his -imagination were kindled and aflame when he spoke of them. Through the -tangled thicket of his ordinary mind there shone this passion of an -uncommon loveliness and splendour. - - - - -XXXVII - -"The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we -really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things, so much -the more is snatched from inevitable time." - ---RICHARD JEFFERIES - - -In the relationship that his everyday mind bore to his present state -there lay, moreover, a wealth of pregnant suggestion. The bridge -connecting his former "civilized" condition with this cosmic experience -was a curious one. That outer, lesser state, it seemed, had known a -foretaste sometimes of the greater. And it was hence had come those -dreams of a Golden Age that used to haunt him. For he began now to -recall the existence of that outer world of men and women, though by -means of certain indefinite channels only. And the things he remembered -were not what the world calls important. They were moments when he had -known--beauty; beauty, however, not of the grandiose sort that holds the -crowd, but of so simple and unadvertised a kind that most men overlook it -altogether. - -He understood now why the thrill had been so wonderful. He saw -clearly why those moments of ecstasy he had often felt in Nature used -to torture him with an inexpressible yearning that was rather pain than -joy. For they were precisely what he now experienced when the viewless -figure of a god passed by him. Down there, out there, below--in that -cabined lesser state--they had been partial, but were now complete. -Those moments of worship he had known in woods, among mountains, -by the shores of desolate seas, even in a London street, perhaps at the -sight of a tree in spring or of a pathway of blue sky between the summer -clouds,--these had been, one and all, tentative, partial revelations of -the Consciousness of the Soul of Earth he now knew face to face. - -These were his only memories of that outer world. Of people, cities, -or of civilization apart from these, he had no single remembrance. - - * * * * * - -Certain of these little partial foretastes now came back to him, like -fragments of dream that trouble the waking day. - -He remembered, for instance, one definite picture: a hot autumn sun -upon a field of stubble where the folded corn-sheaves stood; thistles -waving by the hedges; a yellow field of mustard rising up the slope -against the sky-line, and beyond a row of peering elms that rustled in -the wind. The beauty of the little scene was somehow poignant. He -recalled it vividly. It had flamed about him, transfiguring the world; he -had trembled, yearning to see more, for just behind it he divined with -an exulting passionate worship this gorgeous, splendid Earth-Being with -whom at last he now actually moved. In that instant of a simple -loveliness her consciousness had fringed his own--had bruised it. He -had known it only by the partial channels of sight and smell and -hearing, but had felt the greater thing beyond, without being able to -explain it. And a portion of what he felt had burst in speech from his -lips. - -He was there, he remembered, with two persons, a man and woman -whose name and face, however, he could not summon, and he recalled -that the woman smiled incredulously when he spoke of the exquisite -perfume of those folded corn-sheaves in the air. She told him he -imagined it. He saw again the pretty woman's smile of incomprehension; he -saw the puzzled expression in the eyes of the man; he heard -him murmur something prosaic about the soul, about birds, too, and -the prospects of killing hundreds later--sport! He even saw the woman -picking her way with caution as though the touch of earth could stain -or injure her. He especially recalled the silence that had followed on -his words that sought to show them--Beauty.... He remembered, too, -above all, the sense of loneliness among men that it induced in himself. - -But the memory brought him a curious, sharp pain; and turning to -that couple who were now his playmates in this Garden of the Earth, -he called them with a singing cry and cantered over leagues of flowers, -wind, and sunshine before he stopped again. They leaped and danced -together, exulting in their spacious _Urwelt_ freedom ... want of -comprehension no longer possible. - - * * * * * - -The memory fled away. He shook himself free of it. Then others came in -its place, another and another, not all with people, blind, deaf, and -unreceptive, yet all of "common," simple scenes of beauty when something -vast had surged upon him and broken through the barriers that stand -between the heart and Nature. Such curious little scenes they were. In -most of them he had evidently been alone. But one and all had touched his -soul with a foretaste of this same nameless ecstasy that now he knew -complete. In every one the Consciousness of the Earth had "bruised" his -own. - -Utterly simple they had been, one and all, these partial moments of -blinding beauty in that lesser, outer world:--A big, brown, clumsy bee -he saw, blundering into the petals of a wild flower on which the dew -lay sparkling.... A wisp of colored cloud driving loosely across the -hills, dropping a purple shadow.... Deep, waving grass, plunging and -shaking in the wind that drew out its underworld of blue and silver over -the whole spread surface of a field.... A daisy closed for the night upon -the lawn, eyes tightly shut, hands folded.... A south wind whispering -through larches.... The pattering of summer rain upon young oak -leaves in the dawn.... Fingers of long blue distance upon dreamy -woods.... Anemones shaking their pale and starry little faces in the -wind.... The columned stillness of a pine-wood in the dusk.... Young -birch trees mid the velvet gloom of firs.... The new moon setting in a -cloud of stars.... The hush of stars in many a summer night.... Sheep -grazing idly down a sun-baked hill.... A path of moonlight on a -lake.... A little wind through bare and wintry woods.... Oh! he -recalled the wonder, loveliness, and passion of a thousand more! - -They thronged and passed, and thronged again, crowding one another:--all -golden moments of revelation when he had caught glimpses of the Earth, -and her greater Moods had swept him up into herself. Moments in which a -god had passed.... - -These were his only memories of that outer world he had left behind: -flashes of simple beauty. - -Was thus the thrill of beauty then explained? Was loveliness, as men -know it, a revelation of the Earth-Soul behind? And were the blinding -flash, the dazzling wonder, and the dream men seek to render permanent -in music, color, line and language, a vision of her nakedness? Down -there, the poets and those simple enough of heart to stand close to -Nature, could catch these whispered fragments of the enormous message, -told as in secret; but now, against her very heart he heard the -thunder of the thing complete. Now, in the glory of all naked bodily -forms,--of women, men and children, of swift animals, of flowers, trees, -and running water, of mountains and of seas,--he understood these -partial revelations of the great Earth-Soul that bore them, gave them -life. For one and all were channels for her loveliness. He saw the -beauty of the "natural" instincts, the passion of motherhood and -fatherhood--Earth's seeking to project herself in endless forms and -variety. He understood why love increased the heart and made it feel at -one with all the world. - - * * * * * - -Moreover in some amazing fashion he was aware that others from -that outer world beside himself had access here, and that from this -Garden of the Earth's deep central personality came all the inspiration -known to men. He divined that others were even now drawing upon it -like himself. The thoughts of the poets went past him like thin flames; -the dreams of millions--mute, inexpressible yearnings like those he -had himself once known--streamed by in pale white light, to shoot -forward with a little nesting rush into some great Figure ... and then -return in double volume to the dreaming heart whence first they issued. -Shadows, too, he saw, by myriads--faint, feeble gropings of men and -women seeking it eagerly, yet hardly knowing what they sought; but, -above all, long, singing, beautiful tongues of colored flame that were -the instincts of divining children and of the pure in heart. These came -in rippling floods unerringly to their goal, lingered for long periods -before returning. And all, he knew, were currents of the great Earth -Life, moods, thoughts, dreams--expressions of her various Consciousness -with which she mothered, fed, and blessed all whom it was possible to -reach. Their passionate yearning, their worship, made access possible. -Along the tenderest portions of her personality these latter came, as by -a spread network of infinitely delicate filaments that extended from -herself, deliciously inviting.... - - * * * * * - -The thing, however, that remained with him long after his return -to the normal state of lesser consciousness was the memory of those -blinding moments when a god went past him, or, as he phrased it in -another way, when he caught glimpses of the Earth--naked. For these -were instantaneous flashes of a gleaming whiteness, a dazzling and -supreme loveliness that staggered thought and arrested feeling, while yet -of a radiant simplicity that brought--for a second at least--a measure -of comprehension. - -He then knew not mere partial projections. He saw beyond--deep -down into the flaming center that gave them birth. The blending of his -being with the Cosmic Consciousness was complete enough for this. -He describes it as a spectacle of sheer glory, stupendous, even -terrifying. The refulgent majesty of it utterly possessed him. The shock -of its magnificence came, moreover, upon his entire being, and was not -really of course a "sight" at all. The message came not through any small -division of a single sense. With a massed yet soaring power it shook him -free of all known categories. He then fringed a region of yet greater -being wherein he tasted for a moment some secret comprehension of a true -"divinity." The deliverance into ecstasy was complete. - -In these flashing moments, when a second seemed a thousand years, -he further _understood_ the splendor of the stage beyond. Earth in her -turn was but a Mood in the Consciousness of the Universe, that Universe -again was mothered by another vaster one ... and the total that included -them all was not the gods--but God. - - - - -XXXVIII - - -The litter of disordered notebooks filled to the covers with fragments -of such beauty that they almost seem to burn with a light of their -own, lies at this moment before me on my desk. I still hear the rushing -torrent of his language across the spotted table-cloth in that dark -restaurant corner. But the incoherence seems only to increase with my -best efforts to combine the two. - -"Go home and dream it," as he said at last when I ventured a question -here and there toward the end of the recital. "You'll see it best that -way--in sleep. Get clear away from _me_, and my surface physical -consciousness. Perhaps it will come to you then." - -There remains, however, to record the manner of his exit from that -great Garden of the Earth's fair youth. And he tells it more simply. Or, -perhaps, it is that I understand it better. - -For suddenly, in the midst of all the joy and splendor that he tasted, -there came unbidden a strengthening of the tie that held him to his -"outer," lesser state. A wave of pity and compassion surged in upon him -from the depths. He saw the struggling millions in the prisons and cages -civilization builds. He felt _with_ them. No happiness, he understood, -could be complete that did not also include them all; and--he longed -to tell them. The thought and the desire tore across him burningly. - -"If only I can get this back to them!" passed through him, like a -flame. "I'll save the world by bringing it again to simple things! I've -only got to tell it and all will understand at once--and follow!" - -And with the birth of the desire there ran a deep convulsive sound -like music through the greater Consciousness that held him close. Those -Moods that were the gods, thronged gloriously about him, almost -pressing forwards into actual sight.... He might have lingered where -he was for centuries, or forever; but this thought pulled him back--the -desire to share his knowledge with the world, the passion to heal and -save and rescue. - -And instantly, in the twinkling of an eyelid, the Urwelt closed its gates -of horn and ivory behind him. An immense dark shutter dropped -noiselessly with a speed of lightning across his mind. He stood -without.... - -He found himself near the tumbled-down stone huts of a hamlet that he -recognized. He staggered, rubbed his eyes, and stared. A forest of beech -trees shook below him in a violent wind. He saw the branches tossing. A -Caucasian saddle-horse beside him nosed a sack that spilt its flour on -the ground at his feet, he heard the animal's noisy breathing; he noted -the sliding movement of the spilt flour before it finally settled; and -some fifty yards beyond him, down the slopes, he saw a human -figure--running. - -It was his Georgian guide. The man, half stooping, caught the woolen -bashlik that had fallen from his head. - -O'Malley watched the man complete the gesture. Still running, he -replaced the cap upon his head. - -And coming up to his ears upon the wind were the words of a broken French -sentence that he also recognized. Disjointed by terror, it completed an -interrupted phrase:-- - -"... one of them is close upon us. Hide your eyes! Save yourself!. -They come from the mountains. They are old as the stones ... run...!" - -No other living being was in sight. - - - - -XXXIX - -The extraordinary abruptness of the transition produced no bewilderment, -it seems. Realizing that without Rostom he would be in a position of -helplessness that might be serious, the Irishman put his hands to his -lips and called out with authority to the running figure of his -frightened guide. He shouted to him to stop. - -"There is nothing to fear. Come back! Are you afraid of a gust of wind?" - -And in his face and voice, perhaps too in his manner, was something -he had brought back from the vision, for the man stopped at once in -his headlong course, paused a moment to stare and question, and then, -though still looking over his shoulder and making occasional signs of -his religion, came slowly back to his employer's side again. - -"It has passed," said O'Malley in a voice that seemed to crumble in -his mouth. "It is gone again into the mountains whence it came. We are -safe. With me," he added, not without a secret sense of humor stirring -in him, "you will always be safe. I can protect us both." He felt as -normal as a British officer giving orders to his soldiers. And the -Georgian slowly recovered his composure, yet for a long time keeping -close to the other's side. - -The transition, thus, had been as sudden and complete as anything well -could be. O'Malley described it as the instantaneous dropping of a -shutter across his mind. The entire vision had lasted but a fraction of -a second, and in a fraction of a second, too, he had returned to his -state of everyday lesser consciousness. That blending with the Earth's -great Consciousness was but a flashing glimpse after all. The extension -of personality had been momentary. - -So absolute, moreover, was the return that at first, remembering -nothing, he took up life again exactly where he had left it. The guide -completed the gesture and the sentence which the vision had interrupted, -and O'Malley, similarly, resumed his own thread of thought and action. - -Only a hint remained. That, and a curious sense of interval, alone -were left to witness this flash of an immense vision,--of cosmic -consciousness--that apparently had filled so many days and nights. - -"It was like waking suddenly in the night out of deep sleep," he said; -"not of one's own accord, or gradually, but as when someone shakes -you out of slumber and you are wide awake at once. You have been -dreaming vigorously--thick, lively, crowded dreams, and they all vanish -on the instant. You catch the tail-end of the procession just as it's -diving out of sight. In less than a second all is gone." - -For this was the hint that remained. He caught the flying tail-end of -the vision. He knew he _had_ seen something. But, for the moment, that -was all. - -Then, by degrees and afterwards, the details re-emerged. In the days -that followed, while with Rostom he completed the journey already -planned, the deeper consciousness gave back its memory piece by piece; -and piece by piece he set it down in notebooks as best he could. The -memory was on deposit deep within him, and at intervals he tapped it. -Hence, of course, is due the confused and fragmentary character of those -bewildering entries; hence, at the same time, too, their truth and value. -For here was no imaginative dream concocted in a mood of high invention. -The parts were disjointed, incomplete, just as they came. The lesser -consciousness, it seems, could not contain the thing complete; nor to the -last, I judge, did he ever know complete recapture. - - * * * * * - -They wandered for two weeks and more about the mountains, meeting -various adventure by the way, reported duly in his letters of travel. -But these concerned the outer man and have no proper place in this -strange record ... and by the middle of July he found himself once more -in--civilization. At Michaelevo he said good-bye to Rostom and -took the train. - -And it was with the return to the conditions of modern life that the -reaction set in and stirred the deeper layers of consciousness to -reproduce their store of magic. For this return to what seemed the paltry -activities of an age of machinery, physical luxury, and superficial -contrivances brought him a sense of pain that was acute and trenchant, -more--a deep and poignant sense of loss. The yearnings, no longer -satisfied, began again to reassert themselves. It was not the actual -things the world seemed so busy about that pained him, but rather the -point of view from which the world approached them--those that it deemed -with one consent "important," and those, with rare exceptions, it -obviously deemed worth no consideration at all, and ignored. For himself -these values stood exactly reversed. - -The Vision then came back to him, rose from the depths, blinded his eyes -with maddening beauty, sang in his ears, possessed his heart and mind. He -burned to tell it. The world of tired, restless men, he felt, must -equally burn to hear it. Some vision of a simple life lived close to -Nature came before his inner eye as the remedy for the vast disease of -restless self-seeking of the age, the medicine that should cure the -entire world. A return to Nature was the first step toward the great -Deliverance men sought. And, most of all, he yearned to tell it first to -Heinrich Stahl. - -To hear him talk about it, as he talked perhaps to me alone, was -genuinely pathetic, for here, in Terence O'Malley, I thought to see the -essential futility of all dreamers nakedly revealed. His vision was so -fine, sincere, and noble; his difficulty in imparting it so painful; and -its marriage with practical action so ludicrously impracticable. At any -rate that combination of vision and action, called sometimes genius, -which can shake the world, assuredly was not his. For his was no -constructive mind; he was not "intellectual"; he _saw_, but with the -heart; he could not build. To plan a new Utopia was as impossible to him -as to shape even in words the splendor he had known and lived. Bricks and -straw could only smother him before he laid what most would deem -foundations. - -At first, too, in those days while waiting for the steamer in Batoum, -he kept strangely silent. Even in his own thoughts was silence. He could -not speak of what he knew. Even paper refused it. But all the time this -glorious winged thing, that yet was simple as the sunlight or the rain, -went by his side, while his soul knew the relief of some divine, proud -utterance that, he felt, could never know complete confession in speech -or writing. Later he stammered over it--to his notebooks and to me, -and partially also to Dr. Stahl. But at first it dwelt alone and hidden, -contained in this deep silence. - -The days of waiting he filled with walks about the streets, watching -the world with new eyes. He took the Russian steamer to Poti, and -tramped with a knapsack up the Tchourokh gorge beyond Bourtchka, -regardless of the Turkish gypsies and encampments of wild peoples on -the banks. The sense of personal danger was impossible; he felt the whole -world kin. That sense protected him. Pistol and cartridges lay in his -bag, forgotten at the hotel. - -Delight and pain lay oddly mingled in him. The pain he recognized of -old, but this great radiant happiness was new. The nightmare of modern -cheap-jack life was all explained; unjustified, of course, as he had -always dimly felt, symptom of deep disorder; all due, this feverish, -external business, to an odd misunderstanding with the Earth. Humanity -had somehow quarreled with her, claiming an independence that could not -really last. For her the centuries of this estrangement were but a little -thing perhaps--a moment or two in that huge life which counted a million -years to lay a narrow bed of chalk. They would come back in time. -Meanwhile she ever called. A few, perhaps, already dreamed of return. -Movements, he had heard, were afoot--a tentative endeavor here and there. -They heard, these few, the splendid whisper that, sweetly calling, ever -passed about the world. - -For her voice in the last resort was more potent than all others--an -enchantment that never wholly faded; men had but temporarily left her -mighty sides and gone astray, eating of trees of knowledge that brought -them deceptive illusions of a mad self-intoxication; fallen away into the -pains of separateness and death. Loss of direction and central control -was the result; the Babel of many tongues so clumsily invented, by which -all turned one against another. Insubordinate, artificial centers had -assumed disastrous command. Each struggled for himself against his -neighbors. Even religions fought to the blood. A single sect could damn -the rest of humanity, yet in the same breath sing complaisantly of its -own Heaven. - -Meanwhile She smiled in love and patience, letting them learn their -lesson; meanwhile She watched and waited while, like foolish children, -they toiled and sweated after futile transient things that brought no -single letter of content. She let them coin their millions from her -fairest thoughts, the gold and silver in her veins; and let them turn it -into engines of destruction, knowing that each "life lost," returned into -her arms and heart, crying with the pain of its wayward foolishness, the -lesson learned; She watched their tears and struggling just outside the -open nursery door, knowing they must at length return for food; and -while thus waiting, watching, She heard all prayers that reached her; She -answered them with love and forgiveness ever ready; and to the few who -realized their folly--naughtiness, perhaps, at worst it was--this side of -"death," She brought full measure of peace and joy and beauty. - -Not permanently could they hurt themselves, for evil was but distance -from her side, the ignorance of those who had wandered furthest into -the little dark labyrinth of a separated self. The "intellect" they were -so proud of had misled them. - -And sometimes, here and there across the ages, with a glory that refused -utterly to be denied, She thundered forth her old sweet message of -deliverance. Through poet, priest, or child she called her children -home. The summons rang like magic across the wastes of this dreary -separated existence. Some heard and listened, some turned back, some -wondered and were strangely thrilled; some, thinking it too simple to -be true, were puzzled by the yearning and the tears and went back to -seek for a more difficult way; while most, denying the secret glory in -their hearts, sought to persuade themselves they loved the strife and -hurrying fever best. - -At other times, again, she chose quite different ways, and sent the -amazing message in a flower, a breath of evening air, a shell upon the -shore; though oftenest, perhaps, it hid in a strain of music, a patch of -color on the sea or hills, a rustle of branches in a little twilight -wind, a whisper in the dusk or in the dawn. He remembered his own first -visions of it.... - -Only never could the summons come to her children through the intellect, -for this it was that led them first away. Her message enters ever by the -heart. - -The simple life! He smiled as he thought of the bald Utopias here and -there devised by men, for he had seen a truth whose brilliance smote -his eyes too dazzlingly to permit of the smallest corner of darkness. -Remote, no doubt, in time that day when the lion shall lie down with -the lamb and men shall live together in peace and gentleness; when the -inner life shall be admitted as the Reality, strife, gain, and loss -unknown because possessions undesired, and petty selfhood merged in the -larger life--remote, of course, yet surely not impossible. He had seen -the Face of Nature, heard her Call, tasted her joy and peace; and the -rest of the tired world might do the same. It only waited to be shown the -way. The truth he now saw so dazzling was that all who heard the call -might know it for themselves at once, cuirassed with shining love that -makes the whole world kin, the Earth a mother literally divine. Each soul -might thus provide a channel along which the summons home should pass -across the world. To live with Nature and share her greater -consciousness, _en route_ for states yet greater, nearer to the eternal -home--this was the beginning of the truth, the life, the way. - -He saw "religion" all explained: and those hard sayings that make men -turn away:--the imagined dread of losing life to find it; the counsel -of perfection that the neighbor shall be loved as self; the fancied -injury and outrage that made it hard for rich men to enter the kingdom. -Of these, as of a hundred other sayings, he saw the necessary truth. It -all seemed easy now. The world would see it with him; it must; it could -not help itself. Simplicity as of a little child, and selflessness as of -the mystic--these were the splendid clues. - -Death and the grave, indeed, had lost their victory. For in the stages -of wider consciousness beyond this transient physical phase he saw all -loved ones joined and safe, as separate words upgathered each to each -in the parent sentence that explains them, the sentence in the paragraph, -the paragraph in the whole grand story all achieved--and so at length -into the eternal library of God that consummates the whole. - -He saw the glorious series, timeless and serene, advancing to the climax, -and somehow understood that individuality at each stage was never lost -but rather extended and magnified. Love of the Earth, life close to -Nature, and denial of so-called civilization was the first step upwards. -In the Simple Life, in this return to Nature, lay the opening of the -little path that climbed to the stars and heaven. - - - - -XL - - -At the end of the week the little steamer dropped her anchor in the -harbor and the Irishman booked his passage home. He was standing on the -wharf to watch the unloading when a hand tapped him on the shoulder and -he heard a well-known voice. His heart leaped with pleasure. There were -no preliminaries between these two. - -"I am glad to see you safe. You did not find your friend, then?" - -O'Malley looked at the bronzed face beside him, noted the ragged -tobacco-stained beard, and saw the look of genuine welcome in the -twinkling brown eyes. He watched him lift his cap and mop that familiar -dome of bald head. - -"I'm safe," was all he answered, "because I found him." - -For a moment Dr. Stahl looked puzzled. He dropped the hand he held so -tightly and led him down the wharf. - -"We'll get out of this devilish sun," he said, leading the way among -the tangle of merchandise and bales, "it's enough to boil our brains." -They passed through the crowd of swarthy, dripping Turks, Georgians, -Persians, and Armenians who labored half naked in the heat, and moved -toward the town. A Russian gunboat lay in the Bay, side by side with -freight and passenger vessels. An oil-tank steamer took on cargo. The -scene was drenched in sunshine. The Black Sea gleamed like molten -metal. Beyond, the wooded spurs of the Caucasus climbed through haze -into cloudless blue. - -"It's beautiful," remarked the German, pointing to the distant coastline, -"but hardly with the beauty of those Grecian Isles we passed together. -Eh?" He watched him closely. "You're coming back on our steamer?" he -asked in the same breath. - -"It's beautiful," O'Malley answered ignoring the question, "because -it lives. But there is dust upon its outer loveliness, dust that has -gathered through long ages of neglect, dust that I would sweep away--I've -learnt how to do it. He taught me." - -Stahl did not even look at him, though the words were wild enough. He -walked at his side in silence. Perhaps he partly understood. For this -first link with the outer world of appearances was difficult for him to -pick up. The person of Stahl, thick-coated with the civilization whence -he came, had brought it, and out of the ocean of glorious vision in his -soul, O'Malley took at random the first phrases he could find. - -"Yes, I've booked a passage on your steamer," he added presently, -remembering the question. It did not seem strange to him that his -companion ignored both clues he offered. He knew the man too well -for that. It was only that he waited for more before he spoke. - -They went to the little table outside the hotel pavement where several -weeks ago they had drunk Kakhetian wine together and talked of deeper -things. The German called for a bottle, mineral water, ice, and -cigarettes. And while they sipped the cooling golden liquid, hats off and -coats on the backs of their chairs, Stahl gave him the news of the world -of men and events that had transpired meanwhile. O'Malley listened -vaguely as he smoked. It seemed remote, unreal, almost fantastic, this -long string of ugly, frantic happenings, all symptoms of some disordered -state that was like illness. The scream of politics, the roar and rattle -of flying-machines, financial crashes, furious labor upheavals, rumors of -war, the death of kings and magnates, awful accidents and strange turmoil -in enormous cities. Details of some sad prison life, it almost seemed, -pain and distress and strife the note that bound them all together. Men -were mastered by these things instead of mastering them. These -unimportant things they thought would make them free only imprisoned -them. - -They lunched there at the little table in the shade, and in turn the -Irishman gave an outline of his travels. Stahl had asked for it and -listened attentively. The pictures interested him. - -"You've done your letters for the papers," he questioned him, "and now, -perhaps, you'll write a book as well?" - -"Something may force its way out--come blundering, thundering out in -fragments, yes." - -"You mean you'd rather not--?" - -"I mean it's all too big and overwhelming. He showed me such blinding -splendors. I might tell it, but as to writing--!" He shrugged his -shoulders. - -And this time Dr. Stahl ignored no longer. He took him up. But not with -any expected words or questions. He merely said, "My friend, there's -something that I have to tell you--or, rather, I should say, to show -you." He looked most keenly at him, and in the old familiar way he placed -a hand upon his shoulder. His voice grew soft. "It may upset you; it may -unsettle--prove a shock perhaps. But if you are prepared, we'll go--" - -"What kind of shock?" O'Malley asked, startled a moment by the gravity of -manner. - -"The shock of death," was the answer, gently spoken. - -The Irishman only knew a swift rush of joy and wonder as he heard it. - -"But there is no such thing!" he cried, almost with laughter. "He -taught me that above all else. There is no death!" - -"There is 'going away,' though," came the rejoinder, spoken low; -"there is earth to earth and dust to dust--" - -"That's of the body--!" - -"That's of the body, yes," the older man repeated darkly. - -"There is only 'going home,' escape and freedom. I tell you there's -only that. It's nothing but joy and splendor when you really understand." - -But Dr. Stahl made no immediate answer, nor any comment. He paid -the bill and led him down the street. They took the shady side. Passing -beyond the skirts of the town they walked in silence. The barracks where -the soldiers sang, the railway line to Tiflis and Baku, the dome and -minarets of the church, were left behind in turn, and presently they -reached the hot, straight dusty road that fringed the sea. They heard the -crashing of the little waves and saw the foam creamily white against the -dark grey pebbles of the beach. - -And when they reached a small enclosure where thin trees were -planted among sparse grass all brown and withered by the sun, they -paused, and Stahl pointed to a mound, marked at either end by rough -stone boulder. A date was on it, but no name. O'Malley calculated the -difference between the Russian Calendar and the one he was accustomed -to. Stahl checked him. - -"The fifteenth of June," the German said. - -"The fifteenth of June, yes," said O'Malley very slowly, but with -wonder and excitement in his heart. "That was the day that Rostom -tried to run away--the day I saw him come to me from the trees--the -day we started off together ... to the Garden...." - -He turned to his companion questioningly. For a moment the rush -of memory was quite bewildering. - -"He never left Batoum at all, you see," Stahl continued, without -looking up. "He went straight to the hospital the day we came into port. -I was summoned to him in the night--that last night while you slept -so deeply. His old strange fever was upon him then, and I took him -ashore before the other passengers were astir. I brought him to the -hospital myself. And he never left his bed." He pointed down to the -little nameless grave at their feet where a wandering wind from the sea -just stirred the grasses. "That was the date on which he died." - -"He went away in the early morning," he added in a low voice that -held both sadness and sympathy. - -"He went home," said the Irishman, a tide of joy rising tumultuously -through his heart as he remembered. The secret of that complete and -absolute Leadership was out. He understood it all. It had been a -spiritual adventure to the last. - -Then followed a pause. - -In silence they stood there for some minutes. There grew no flowers on -that grave, but O'Malley stooped down and picked a strand of the withered -grass. He put it carefully between the pages of his notebook; and then, -lying flat against the ground where the sunshine fell in a patch of white -and burning glory, he pressed his lips to the crumbling soil. He kissed -the Earth. Oblivious of Stahl's presence, or at least ignoring it, he -worshipped. - -And while he did so he heard that little sound he loved so well--which -more than any words or music brought peace and joy, because it told his -Passion all complete. With his ears close to the earth he heard it, yet -at the same time heard it everywhere. For it came with the falling of the -waves upon the shore, through the murmur of the rustling branches -overhead, and even across the whispering of the withered grass about him. -Deep down in the center of the mothering Earth he heard it too in faintly -rising pulse. It was the exquisite little piping on a reed--the ancient -fluting of the everlasting Pan.... - -And when he rose he found that Stahl had turned away and was gazing at -the sea, as though he had not noticed. - -"Doctor," he cried, yet so softly it was a whisper rather than a call, "I -heard it then again; it's everywhere! Oh, tell me that you hear it too!" - -Stahl turned and looked at him in silence. There was a moisture in his -eyes, and on his face a look of softness that a woman might have worn. - -"I've brought it back, you see, I've brought it back. For that's the -message--that's the sound and music I must give to all the world. No -words, no book can tell it." His hat was off, his eyes were shining, his -voice broke with the passion of joy he yearned to share yet knew so -little how to impart. "If I can pipe upon the flutes of Pan the millions -all will listen, will understand, and--follow. Tell me, oh, tell me, that -_you_ heard it too!" - -"My friend, my dear young friend," the German murmured in a voice of real -tenderness, "you heard it truly--but you heard it in your heart. Few hear -the Pipes of Pan as you do. Few care to listen. Today the world is full -of other sounds that drown it. And even of those who hear," he shrugged -his shoulders as he led him away toward the sea,--"how few will care to -follow--how fewer still will _dare._" - -And while they lay upon the beach and watched the line of foam against -their feet and saw the seagulls curving idly in the blue and shining air, -he added underneath his breath--O'Malley hardly caught the murmur of his -words so low he murmured them:-- - -"The simple life is lost forever. It lies asleep in the Golden Age, and -only those who sleep and dream can ever find it. If you would keep your -joy, dream on, my friend! Dream on, but dream alone!" - - - - -XLI - - -Summer blazed everywhere and the sea lay like a blue pool of melted sky -and sunshine. The summits of the Caucasus soon faded to the east and -north, and to the south the wooded hills of the Black Sea coast -accompanied the ship in a line of wavy blue that joined the water and -the sky indistinguishably. - -The first-class passengers were few; O'Malley hardly noticed their -existence even. An American engineer, building a railway in Turkey, -came on board at Trebizond; there were one or two light women on their -way home from Baku, and the attache of a foreign embassy from Teheran. -But the Irishman felt more in touch with the hundred peasant-folk -who joined the ship at Ineboli from the interior of Asia Minor -and were bound as third-class emigrants for Marseilles and far America. -Dark-skinned, wild-eyed, ragged, very dirty, they had never seen the sea -before, and the sight of a porpoise held them spellbound. They lived -on the after-deck, mostly cooking their own food, the women and children -sleeping beneath a large tarpaulin that the sailors stretched for -them across the width of deck. At night they played their pipes and -danced, singing, shouting, and waving their arms--always the same -tune over and over again. - -O'Malley watched them for hours together. He also watched the engineer, -the over-dressed women, the attache. He understood the difference -between them as he had never understood it before. He understood the -difficulty of his task as well. How in the world could he ever explain a -single syllable of his message to these latter, or waken in them the -faintest echo of desire to know and listen. The peasants, though all -unconscious of the blinding glory at their elbows, stood far nearer to -the truth. - -"Been further east, I suppose?" the engineer observed, one afternoon -as the steamer lay off Broussa, taking on a little extra cargo of walnut -logs. He looked admiringly at the Irishman's bronzed skin. "Take a -better sun than this to put that on!" - -He laughed in his breezy, vigorous way, and the other laughed with -him. Previous conversations had already paved the way to a traveler's -friendship, and the American had taken to him. - -"Up in the mountains," he replied, "camping out and sleeping in the -sun did it." - -"The Caucasus! Ah, I'd like to get up there myself a bit. I'm told -they're a wonderful thing in the mountain line." - -Scenery for him was evidently a commercial commodity, or it was nothing. -It was the most up-to-date nation in the world that spoke--in the van of -civilization--representing the last word in progress due to triumph over -Nature. - -O'Malley said he had never seen anything like them. He described the -trees, the flowers, the tribes, the scenery in general; he dwelt upon -the vast uncultivated spaces, the amazing fruitfulness of the soil, the -gorgeous beauty above all. "I'd like to get the overcrowded cities of -England and Europe spread all over it," he said with enthusiasm. "There -is room for thousands there to lead a simple life close to Nature, in -health and peace and happiness. Even your tired millionaires could -escape their restless, feverish worries, lay down their weary burden of -possessions, and enjoy the earth at last. The poor would cease to be with -us; life become true and beautiful again--" He let it pour out of him, -building the scaffolding of his dream before him in the air and filling -it in with beauty. - -The American listened in patience, watching the walnut logs being -towed through the water to the side of the ship. From time to time he -spat on them, or into the sea. He let the beauty go completely past him. - -"Great idea, that!" he interrupted at length. "You're interested, I see, -in socialism and communistic schemes. There's money in them somewhere -right enough, if a man only could hit the right note at the first -go off. Take a bit of doing, though!" - -One of the women from Baku came up and leaned upon the rails a little -beyond them. The sickly odor of artificial scent wafted down. The -attache strolled along the deck and ogled her. - -"Get a few of that sort to draw the millionaires in, eh?" he added -vulgarly. - -"Even those would come, yes," said the Irishman softly, realizing for -the first time within his memory that his gorge did not rise, "for they -too would change, grow clean and sweet and beautiful." - -The engineer looked sharply into his face, uncertain whether he had -not missed a clever witticism of his own kind. But O'Malley did not -meet his glance. His eyes were far away upon the snowy summit of -Olympus where a flock of fleecy clouds hung hovering like the hair of -the eternal gods. - -"They say there's timber going to waste that you could get to the coast -merely for the cost of drawing it--Caucasian walnut, too, to burn," the -other continued, getting on to safer ground, "and labor's dirt cheap. -There's every sort of mineral too God ever made. You could build light -railways and run the show by electricity. And water-power for the asking. -You'd have to get a Concession from Russia first though," he added, -spitting down upon a huge floating log in the clear sea underneath, -"and Russia's got palms that want a lot of greasing. I guess the natives, -too, would take a bit of managing." - -The woman beyond had shifted several feet nearer, and after a pause -the Irishman found no words to fill, his companion turned to address -a remark to her. O'Malley took the opening and moved away. - -"Here's my card, anyway," the American added, handing him an -over-printed bit of large pasteboard from a fat pocket-book that bore -his name and address in silver on the outside. "If you develop the scheme -and want a bit of money, count me in." - -He went to the other side of the vessel and watched the peasants on -the lower deck. Their dirt seemed nothing by comparison. It was only -on their clothes and bodies. The odor of this unwashed humanity was -almost sweet and wholesome. It cleansed the sickly taint of that other -scent from his palate; it washed his mind of thoughts as well. - -He stood there long in dreaming silence, while the sunlight on Olympus -turned from gold to rose, and the sea took on the colors of the fading -sky. He watched a dark Kurd baby sliding down the tarpaulin. A kitten was -playing with a loose end of rope too heavy for it to move. Further off a -huge fellow with bared chest and the hands of a colossus sat on a pile of -canvas playing softly on his wooden pipes. The dark hair fell across his -eyes, and a group of women listened idly while they busied themselves -with the cooking of the evening meal. Immediately beneath him a -splendid-eyed young woman crammed a baby to her naked breast. The kitten -left the rope and played with the tassel of her scarlet shawl. - -And as he heard those pipes and watched the grave, untamed, strong faces -of those wild peasant men and women, he understood that, low though they -might be in scale of evolution, there was yet absent from them the touch -of that deteriorating _something_ which civilization painted into those -other countenances. But whether the word he sought was degradation or -whether it was shame, he could not tell. In all they did, the way they -moved, their dignity and independence, there was this something, he felt, -that bordered on being impressive. Their wants were few, their worldly -possessions in a bundle, yet they had this thing that set them in a place -apart, if not above, these others:--beyond that simpering attache for all -his worldly diplomacy, that engineer with brains and skill, those painted -women with their clever playing upon the feelings and desires of their -kind. There _was_ this difference that set the ragged dirty crew in a -proud and quiet atmosphere that made them seem almost distinguished by -comparison, and certainly more desirable. Rough and untutored though they -doubtless were, they still possessed unspoiled that deeper and more -elemental nature that bound them closer to the Earth. It needed training, -guidance, purifying; yes; but, in the last resort, was it not of greater -spiritual significance and value than the mode of comparatively -recently-developed reason by which Civilization had produced these other -types? - -He watched them long. The sun sank out of sight, the sea turned -dark, ten thousand stars shone softly in the sky, and while the steamer -swung about and made for peaked Andros and the coast of Greece, he -still stood on in reverie and wonder. The wings of his great Dream -stirred mightily ... and he saw pale millions of men and women trooping -through the gates of horn and ivory into that Garden where they should -find peace and happiness in clean simplicity close to the Earth.... - - - - -XLII - - -There followed four days then of sea, Greece left behind, Messina and the -Lipari Islands past; and the blue outline of Sardinia and Corsica began -to keep pace with them as they neared the narrow straits of Bonifacio -between them. The passengers came up to watch the rocky desolate shores -slip by so close, and Captain Burgenfelder was on the bridge. - -Grey-headed rocks rose everywhere close about the ship; overhead the -seagulls cried and circled; no vegetation was visible on either shore, no -houses, no abode of man--nothing but the lighthouses, then miles of -deserted rock dressed in those splendors of the sun's good-night. The -dinner-gong had sounded but the sight was too magnificent to leave, -for the setting sun floated on an emblazoned sea and stared straight -against them in level glory down the narrow passage. Unimaginable -colors painted sky and wave. The ruddy cliffs of bleak loneliness rose -from a bed of flame. Soft airs fanned the cheeks with welcome coolness -after the fierce heat of the day. There was a scent of wild honey in the -air borne from the purple uplands far, far away. - -"I wonder, oh, I wonder, if they realized that a god is passing -close...!" the Irishman murmured with a rising of the heart, "and that -here is a great mood of the Earth-Consciousness inviting them to peace! -Or do they merely see a yellow sun that dips beneath a violet sea...?" - -The washing of the water past the steamer's sides caught away the rest -of the half-whispered words. He remembered that host of many thousand -heads that bowed in silence while a god swept by.... It was almost -a shock to hear a voice replying close beside him:-- - -"Come to my cabin when you're ready. My windows open to the west. -We can be alone together. We can have there what food we need. You -would prefer it perhaps?" - -He felt the touch of that sympathetic hand upon his shoulder, and -bent his head to signify agreement. - -For a moment, face to face with that superb sunset, he had known a deep -and utter peace in the vast bosom of this greater soul about him. Her -consciousness again had bruised and fringed his own. Across that -delicately divided threshold the beauty and the power of the gods had -poured in a flood into his being. And only there was peace, only there -was joy, only there was the death of those ancient yearnings that -tortured his little personal and separate existence. The return to the -world was aching pain again. The old loneliness that seemed more than he -could bear swept icily through him, contracting life and freezing every -spring of joy. For in that single instant of return he felt pass into him -a loneliness of the whole travailing world, the loneliness of countless -centuries, the loneliness of all the races of the Earth who were exiled -and had lost the way. - -Too deep it lay for words or tears or sighs. The doctor's invitation -came most opportunely. And presently in silence he turned his back -upon that opal sky of dream from which the sun had gone, and walked -slowly down the deck toward Stahl's cabin. - -"If only I can share it with them," he thought as he went; "if only -men will listen, if only they will come. To keep it all to myself, to -dream alone, will kill me." - -And as he stood before the door it seemed he heard wild rushing -through the sky, the tramping of a thousand hoofs, a roaring of the -wind, the joy of that free, torrential passage with the Earth. He turned -the handle and entered the cozy room where weeks before they held the -inquest on the little empty tenement of flesh, remembering how that -other figure had once stood where he now stood--part of the sunrise, -part of the sea, part of the morning winds. - - * * * * * - -They had their meal almost in silence, while the glow of sunset filled -the cabin through the western row of port-holes, and when it was over -Stahl made the coffee as of old and lit the familiar black cigar. -Slowly O'Malley's pain and restlessness gave way before the other's -soothing quiet. He had never known him before so calm and gentle, so -sympathetic, almost tender. The usual sarcasm seemed veiled in sadness; -there was no irony in the voice, nor mockery in the eyes. - -Then to the Irishman it came suddenly that all these days while he -had been lost in dreaming the doctor had kept him as of old under close -observation. The completeness of his reverie had concealed from him this -steady scrutiny. He had been oblivious to the fact that Stahl had all the -time been watching, investigating, keenly examining. Abruptly he now -realized it. - -And then Stahl spoke. His tone was winning, his manner frank and -inviting. But it was the sadness about him that won O'Malley's confidence -so wholly. - -"I can guess," he said, "something of the dream you've brought with -you from those mountains. I can understand--more, perhaps, than you -imagine, and I can sympathize--more than you think possible. Tell me -about it fully--if you can. I see your heart is very full, and in the -telling you will find relief. I am not hostile, as you sometimes feel. -Tell me, my dear, young clear-eyed friend. Tell me your vision and your -hope. Perhaps I might even help ... for there may be things that I could -also tell to you in return." - -Something in the choice of words, none of which offended; in the -atmosphere and setting, no detail of which jarred; and in the degree of -balance between utterance and silence his world of inner forces just then -knew, combined to make the invitation irresistible. Moreover, he had -wanted to tell it all these days. Stahl was already half convinced. Stahl -would surely understand and help him. It was the psychological moment -for confession. The two men rose in the same moment, Stahl to -lock the cabin doors against interruption, O'Malley to set their chairs -more closely side by side so that talking should be easiest. - -And then without demur or hesitation he opened his heart to this -other and let the floodgates of his soul swing wide. He told the vision -and he told the dream; he told his hope as well. And the story of his -passion, filled in with pages from those notebooks he ever carried in -his pocket, still lasted when the western glow had faded from the sky -and the thick-sown stars shone down upon the gliding steamer. The -hush of night lay soft upon the world before he finished. - -He told the thing complete, much, I imagine, as he told it all to me upon -the roof of that apartment building and in the dingy Soho restaurant. He -told it without reservations--his life-long yearnings: the explanation -brought by the presence of the silent stranger upon the outward voyage: -the journey to the Garden: the vision that all life--from gods to -flowers, from men to mountains--lay contained in the conscious Being of -the Earth, that Beauty was but glimpses of her essential nakedness; and -that salvation of the world's disease of modern life was to be found in a -general return to the simplicity of Nature close against her mothering -heart. He told it all--in words that his passionate joy chose -faultlessly. - -And Heinrich Stahl in silence listened. He asked no single question. -He made no movement in his chair. His black cigar went out before -the half of it was smoked. The darkness hid his face impenetrably. - -And no one came to interrupt. The murmur of the speeding steamer, -and occasional footsteps on the deck as passengers passed to and fro in -the cool of the night, were the only sounds that broke the music of that -incurable idealist's impassioned story. - - - - -XLIII - - -And then at length there came a change of voice across the cabin. The -Irishman had finished. He sank back in the deep leather chair, exhausted -physically, but with the exultation of his mighty hope still pouring at -full strength through his heart. For he had ventured further than ever -before and had spoken of a possible crusade--a crusade that should preach -peace and happiness to every living creature. - -And Dr. Stahl, in a voice that showed how deeply he was moved, asked -quietly:-- - -"By leading the nations back to Nature you think they shall advance -to Truth at last?" - -"With time," was the reply. "The first step lies there:--in changing -the direction of the world's activities, changing it from the transient -Outer to the eternal Inner. In the simple life, external possessions -unnecessary and recognized as vain, the soul would turn within and -seek Reality. Only a tiny section of humanity has time to do it now. -There is no leisure. Civilization means acquirement for the body: it -ought to mean development for the soul. Once sweep aside the trash -and rubbish men seek outside themselves today, and the wings of their -smothered souls would stir again. Consciousness would expand. Nature -would draw them first. They would come to feel the Earth as I did. Self -would disappear, and with it this false sense of separateness. The -greater consciousness would waken in them. The peace and joy and -blessedness of inner growth would fill their lives. But, first, this -childish battling to the death for external things must cease, and -Civilization stand revealed for the bleak and empty desolate thing it -really is. It leads away from God and from the things that are eternal." - -The German made no answer; O'Malley ceased to speak; a long silence -fell between them. Then, presently, Stahl relighted his cigar, and -lapsing into his native tongue--always a sign with him of deepest -seriousness--he began to talk. - -"You've honored me," he said, "with a great confidence; and I am deeply, -deeply grateful. You have told your inmost dream--the thing men find it -hardest of all to speak about." He felt in the darkness for his -companion's hand and held it tightly for a moment. He made no other -comment upon what he had heard. "And in return--in some small way of -return," he continued, "I may ask you to listen to something of my own, -something of possible interest. No one has ever known it from my lips. -Only, in our earlier conversations on the outward voyage, I hinted at it -once or twice. I sometimes warned you--" - -"I remember. You said he'd 'get' me, 'win' me over--'appropriation' was -the word you used." - -"I suggested caution, yes; urged you not to let yourself go too -completely; told you he represented danger to yourself, and to humanity -as it is organized today--" - -"And all the rest," put in O'Malley a shade impatiently. "I remember -perfectly." - -"Because I knew what I was talking about." The doctor's voice came across -the darkness somewhat ominously. And then he added in a louder tone, -evidently sitting forward as he said it: "For the thing that has happened -to yourself as I foresaw it would, had already _almost_ happened to me -too!" - -"To you, doctor, too?" exclaimed the Irishman in the moment's pause -that followed. - -"I saved myself just in time--by getting rid of the cause." - -"You discharged him from the hospital, because you were afraid!" He said -it sharply as though are instant of the old resentment had flashed up. - -By way of answer Stahl rose from his chair and abruptly turned up the -electric lamp upon the desk that faced them across the cabin. Evidently -he preferred the light. O'Malley saw that his face was white and very -grave. He grasped for the first time that the man was speaking -professionally. The truth came driving next behind it--that Stahl -regarded him as a patient. - - * * * * * - -"Please go on, doctor," he said, keenly on the watch. "I'm deeply -interested." The wings of his great dream still bore him too far aloft -for him to feel more than the merest passing annoyance at his discovery. -Resentment had gone too. Sadness and disappointment for an instant -touched him perhaps, but momentarily. In the end he felt sure that -Stahl would stand at his side, completely won over and convinced. - -"You had a similar experience to my own, you say," he urged him. "I -am all eagerness and sympathy to hear." - -"We'll talk in the open air," the doctor answered, and ringing the bell -for the steward to clear away, he drew his companion out to the deserted -decks. They moved toward the bows, past the sleeping peasants. The stars -were mirrored in a glassy sea and toward the north the hills of Corsica -stood faintly outlined in the sky. It was already long after midnight. - -"Yes, a similar thing nearly happened to me," he resumed as they settled -themselves against a coil of rope where only the murmur of the washing -sea could reach them, "and might have happened to others too. Inmates of -that big _Krankenhaus_ were variously affected. My action, tardy I must -admit, saved myself and them." - -And the German then told his story as a man might tell of his escape from -some grave disaster. In the emphatic sentences of his native language he -told it, congratulating himself all through. The Russian had almost won -him over, gained possession of his heart and mind, persuaded him, but in -the end had failed--because the other ran away. It was like hearing a man -describe an attempt to draw him into Heaven, then boast of his escape. -His caution and his judgment, as he put it, saved him, but to the -listening Celt it rather seemed that his compromise it was that damned -him. The Kingdom of Heaven is hard to enter, for Stahl had possessions -not of the wood and metal order, but possessions of the brain and reason -he was too proud to forego completely. They kept him out. - -With increasing sadness, too, he heard it; for here he realized was the -mental attitude of an educated, highly civilized man today--a -representative type regarded by the world as highest. It was this he had -to face. Moreover Stahl was more than merely educated, he was -understandingly sympathetic, meeting the great dream halfway; seeing in -it possibilities; admitting its high beauty, and even sometimes speaking -of it with hope and a touch of enthusiasm. Its originator none the less -he regarded as a reactionary dreamer, an unsettling and disordered -influence, a patient, if not even something worse! - -Stahl's voice and manner were singular while he told it all, revealing -one moment the critical mind that analyzed and judged, and the next -an enthusiasm almost of the mystic. Alternately, like the man and -woman of those quaint old weather-glasses, each peered out and showed -a face, the reins of compromise yet ever seeking to hold them well in -leash and drive them together. - -Hardly, it seems, had the strange Russian been under his care a week -before he passed beneath the sway of his curious personality and -experienced the attack of singular emotions upon his heart and mind. - -He described at first the man's arrival, telling it with the calm and -balanced phrases a doctor uses when speaking merely of a patient who -had stirred his interest. He first detailed the method of suggestion he -had used to revive the lapsed memory--and its utter failure. Then he -passed on to speak of him more generally: but briefly and condensed. - -"The man," he said, "was so engaging, so docile, his personality -altogether so attractive and mysterious, that I took the case myself -instead of delegating it to my assistants. All efforts to trace his past -collapsed. It was as if he had drifted into that little hotel out of the -night of time. Of madness there was no evidence whatever. The association -of ideas in his mind, though limited, was logical and rigid. His health -was perfect, barring strange, sudden fever; his vitality tremendous; -yet he ate most sparingly and the only food he touched was fruit and -milk and vegetables. Meat made him sick, the huge frame shuddered -when he saw it. And from all the human beings in the place with whom -he came in contact he shrank with a kind of puzzled dismay. With animals, -most oddly it seemed, he sought companionship; he would run to the window -if a dog barked, or to hear a horse's hoofs; a Persian cat belonging to -one of the nurses never left his side, and I have seen the trees in the -yard outside his window thick with birds, and even found them in the room -and on the sill, flitting about his very person, unafraid and singing. - -"With me, as with the attendants, his speech was almost nil--laconic -words in various languages, clipped phrases that sometimes combined -Russian, French, or German, other tongues as well. - -"But, strangest of all, with animal life he seemed to hold this kind -of communication that was Intelligible both to himself and them. Animals -certainly were 'aware' of him. It was not speech. It ran in a deep, -continuous murmur like a droning, humming sound of wind. I took the hint -thus faintly offered. I gave him his freedom in the yards and gardens. -The open air and intercourse with natural life was what he craved. The -sadness and the air of puzzled fretting then left his face, his eyes grew -bright, his whole presentment happier; he ran and laughed and even sang. -The fever that had troubled him all vanished. Often myself I took the -place of nurse or orderly to watch him, for the man's presence more than -interested me: it gave me a renewed sense of life that was exhilarating, -invigorating, delightful. And in his appearance, meanwhile, something -that was not size or physical measurement, turned--tremendous. - -"A part of me that was not mind--a sort of forgotten instinct blindly -groping--came of its own accord to regard him as some loose fragment -of a natural, cosmic life that had somehow blundered down into a -human organism it sought to use.... - -"And then it was for the first time I recognized the spell he had cast -upon me; for, when the Committee decided there was no reason to keep -him longer, I urged that he should stay. Making a special plea, I took -him as a private patient of my own. I kept him under closer personal -observation than ever before. I needed him. Something deep within me, -something undivined hitherto, called out into life by his presence, could -not do without him. This new craving, breakingly wild and sweet, awoke -in my blood and cried for him. His presence nourished it in me. Most -insidiously it attacked me. It stirred deep down among the roots of my -being. It 'threatened my personality' seems the best way I can put it; -for, turning a critical analysis upon it, I discovered that it was an -undermining and revolutionary change going steadily forward in my -character. Its growth had hitherto been secret. When I first recognized -its presence, the thing was already strong. For a long time, it had been -building. - -"And the change in a word--you will grasp my meaning from the shortest -description of essentials--was this: that ambition left me, ordinary -desire crumbled, the outer world men value so began to fade." - -"And in their place?" cried O'Malley breathlessly, interrupting for -the first time. - -"Came a rushing, passionate desire to escape from cities and live for -beauty and simplicity 'in the wilderness'; to taste the life _he_ -seemed to know; to go out blindly with him into woods and desolate -places, and be mixed and blended with the loveliness of Earth and Nature. -This was the first thing I knew. It was like an expansion of my normal -world--almost an extension of consciousness. It somehow threatened my -sense of personal identity. And--it made me hesitate." - -O'Malley caught the tremor in his voice. Even in the telling of it the -passion plucked at him, for here, as ever, he stood on the border-line of -compromise, his heart tempting him toward salvation, his brain and -reason tugging at the brakes. - -"The sham and emptiness or modern life, its drab vulgarity, the -unworthiness of its very ideals stood appallingly revealed before some -inner eye just opening. I felt shaken to the core of what had seemed -hitherto my very solid and estimable self. How the man thus so powerfully -affected me lies beyond all intelligible explanation. To use the obvious -catchword 'hypnotism' is to use a toy and stop a leak with paper. For his -influence was _unconsciously_ exerted. He cast no net of clever, -persuasive words about my thought. Out of that deep, strange silence of -the man it somehow came. His actions and his simple happiness of face and -manner--both in some sense the raw material of speech perhaps--may have -operated as potently suggestive agents; but no adequate causes to justify -the result, apart from the fantastic theories I have mentioned, have ever -yet come within the range of my understanding. I can only give you the -undeniable effects." - -"Your sense of extended consciousness," asked his listener, "was this -continuous, once it had begun?" - -"It came in patches," Stahl continued. "My normal, everyday self was -thus able to check it. While it derided, commiserated this everyday self, -the latter stood in dread of it and even awe. My training, you see, -regarded it as symptom of disorder, a beginning of unbalance that might -end in insanity, the thin wedge of a dissociation of the personality -Morton Prince and others have described." - -His speech grew more and more jerky, even incoherent; evidently the -material had not even now been fully reduced to order in his mind. - -"Among other curious symptoms I soon established that this subtle -spreading of my consciousness grew upon me especially during sleep. -The business of the day distracted, scattered it. On waking in the -morning, as with the physical fatigue that comes toward the closing of -the day, it was strongest. - -"And so, in order to examine it closely when in fullest manifestation, -I came to spend the nights with him. I would creep in while he slept -and stay till morning, alternately sleeping and waking myself. I watched -the two of us together. I also watched the 'two' in me. And thus it was -I made the further strange discovery that the influence _he_ exerted on -me was strongest while he slept. It is best described by saying that in -his sleep I was conscious that he sought to draw me with him--away -somewhere into his own wonderful world--the state or region, that is, -where he manifested completely instead of partially as I knew him here. -His personality was a channel somewhere out into a living, conscious -Nature...." - -"Only," interrupted O'Malley, "you felt that to yield and go involved -some nameless inner catastrophe, and so resisted?" He chose his phrase -with purpose. - -"Because I discovered," was the pregnant answer, given steadily while -he watched his listener closely through the darkness, "that this desire -for escape the man had wakened in me was nothing more or less than the -desire to leave the world, to leave the conditions that prevented--in -fact to leave the body. My discontent with modern life had gone as far -as that. It was the birth of the suicidal mania." - - * * * * * - -The pause that followed the words, on the part of Dr. Stahl at any -rate, was intentional. O'Malley held his peace. The men shifted their -places oil the coil of rope, for both were cramped and stiff with the -lengthy session. For a minute or two they leaned over the bulwarks and -watched the phosphorescent foam in silence. The blue mountainous shores -slipped past in shadowy line against the stars. But when they sat down -again their relative positions were not what they had been before. Dr. -Stahl had placed himself between his listener and the sea. And O'Malley -did not let the manoeuvre escape him. Smiling to himself he noticed it. -Just as surely he noticed, too, that the whole recital was being told him -with a purpose. - -"You really need not be afraid," he could not resist saying. "The idea -of escape _that_ way has never even come to me at all. And, anyhow, I've -far too much on hand first in telling the world my message." He laughed -in the silence that took his words, for Stahl said nothing and made as -though he had not heard. But the Irishman understood that it was in -the spirit of feeble compromise that danger lay--if danger there was at -all, and he himself was far beyond such weakness. His eye was single -and his body full of light, and the faith that plays with mountains had -made him whole. Return to Nature for him involved no denial of human -life, nor depreciation of human interests, but only a revolutionary -shifting of values. - -"And it was one night while he slept and I watched him in the little -room," resumed the German as though there had been no interruption, -"I noticed first so decisively this growing of a singular size about him -I have already mentioned, and grasped its meaning. For the bulk of the -man while growing--emerging, rather, I should say--assumed another -shape than his own. It was not my eyes that saw it. I saw him as _he felt -himself to be_. The creature's personality, his essential inner being, -was acting directly upon my own. His influence was at me from another -point or angle. First the emotions, then the senses you see. It was a -finely organized attack. - -"I definitely understood at last that my mind was affected--and proved it -too, for the instant effort I made at recovery resulted in my seeing him -normal again. The size and shape retreated the moment I denied them." - -O'Malley noticed how the speaker's voice lingered over the phrase. -Again he knew the intention of the pause that followed. He held his -peace, however, and waited. - -"Nor was sight the only sense affected," Stahl continued, "for smell -and hearing also brought their testimony. Through all but touch, -indeed, the hallucination attacked me. For sometimes at night while I -sat up watching in the little room, there rose outside the open window -in the yards and gardens a sound of tramping, a distant roaring as of -voices in a rising wind, a rushing, hollow murmur, confused and deep -like that of forests, or the swift passage of a host of big birds across -the sky. I heard it, both in the air and on the ground--this tramping on -the lawns, this curious shaking of the atmosphere. And with it at the -same time a sharp and mingled perfume that made me think of earth -and leaves, of flowers after rain, of plains and open spaces, most -singular of all--of animals and horses. - -"Before the firm denial of my mind, they vanished, just as the change -of form had vanished. But both left me weaker than they found me, -more tender to attack. Moreover, I understood most plainly, that they -emanated all from him. These 'emanations' came, too, chiefly, as I -mentioned, whilst he slept. In sleep, it seemed, he set them free. The -slumber of the body disengaged them. And then the instinct came to -warn me--presenting itself with the authority of an unanswerable -intuition--the realization, namely, that if, for a single moment in his -presence, I slept, the changes would leap forward in my own being, and -I should join him." - -"Escape! Know freedom in a larger consciousness!" cried the other. - -"And for a man of my point of view and training to have permitted -such a conviction at all," he went on, the interruption utterly ignored -again, "proves how far along the road I had already traveled without -knowing it. Only at the time I was not aware of this. It was the shock -of full discovery later that brought me to my senses, when, seeking to -withdraw,--I found I could not." - -"And so you ran away." It came out bluntly enough, with a touch of -scorn but ill concealed. - -"We discharged him. But before that came there was more I have to -tell you--if you still care to hear it." - -"I'm not tired, if that's what you mean. I could listen all night, as far -as that goes." - -He rose to stretch his legs a moment, and Stahl rose too--instantly. -Together they leaned over the bulwarks. The German's hat was off and -the air made by the steamer's passage drew his beard out. The warm soft -wind brought odors of sea and shore. It caressed their faces, then passed -on across those sleeping peasants on the lower deck. The masts and -rigging swung steadily against the host of stars. - -"Before I thus knew myself half caught," continued the doctor, standing -now close enough beside him for actual contact, "and found it difficult -to get away, other things had happened, things that confirmed the change -so singularly begun in me. They happened everywhere; confirmation came -from many quarters; though slight enough, they filled in all the gaps and -crevices, strengthened the joints, and built the huge illusion round me -all complete until it held me like a prison. - -"And they are difficult to tell. Only, indeed, to yourself who underwent -a similar experience up there in the mountains, could they bring much -meaning. You had the same temptation and you--weathered the same storm." -He caught O'Malley's arm a moment and held it. "You escaped this madness -just as I did, and you will realize what I mean when I say that the -sensation of losing my sense of personal identity became so dangerously, -so seductively strong. The feeling of extended consciousness became -delicious--too delicious to resist. A kind of pagan joy and exultation -known to some in early youth, but put away with the things of youth, -possessed me. In the presence of this other's soul, so strangely powerful -in its silence and simplicity, I felt as though I touched new sources of -life. I tapped them. They poured down and flooded me--with dreams--dreams -that could really haunt--with unsettling thoughts of glory and delight -_beyond the body_. I got clean away into Nature. I felt as though some -portion of me just awakening reached out across him into rain and -sunshine, far up into the sweet and starry sky--as a tree growing out of -a thicket that chokes its lower part finds light and freedom at the top." - -"It caught you badly, doctor," O'Malley murmured. "The gods came close!" - -"So badly that I loathed the prisoned darkness that held me so thickly -in the body. I longed to know my being all dispersed through Nature, -scattered with dew and wind, shining with the star-light and the sun. -And the manner of escape I hinted to you a little while ago came to -seem right and necessary. Lawful it seemed, and obvious. The mania -literally obsessed me, though still I tried to hide it even from myself -... and struggled in resistance." - -"You spoke just now of other things that came to confirm it," the -Irishman said while the other paused to take breath. All this he knew. -He grew weary of Stahl's clever laboring the point that it was madness. -A little knowledge is ever dangerous, and he saw so clearly why the -hesitation of the merely intellectual man had led him into error. "Did -you mean that others acknowledged this influence as well as yourself?" - -"You shall read that for yourself tomorrow," came the answer, "in the -detailed report I drew up afterwards; it is far too long to tell you now. -But, I may mention something of it. That breaking out of patients was -a curious thing, their trying to escape, their dreams and singing, their -efforts sometimes to approach his room, their longing for the open and -the gardens; the deep, prolonged entrancing of a few; the sounds of -rushing, tramping that they, too, heard, the violence of some, the silent -ecstasy of others. The thing may find its parallel, perhaps, in the -collective mania that sometimes afflicts religious communities, in -monasteries or convents. Only here there was no preacher and eloquent -leader to induce hysteria--nothing but that silent dynamo of power, -gentle and winning as a little child, a being who could not put a phrase -together, exerting his potent spell unconsciously, and chiefly while he -slept. - -"For the phenomena almost without exception came in the night, and often -at their fullest strength, as afterwards reported to me, while I dozed in -his room and watched beside his motionless and slumbering form. Oh, and -there was more as well, much more, as you shall read. The stories my -assistants brought me, the tales of frightened nurse and warder, the -amazing yarns the porter stammered out, of strangers who had rung the -bell at dawn, trying to push past him through the door, saying they were -messengers and had been summoned, sent for, had to come,--large, curious, -windy figures, or, as he sometimes called them with unconscious humor, -'like creatures out of fairy books or circuses' that always vanished as -suddenly as they came. Making every allowance for excitement and -exaggeration, the tales were strange enough, I can assure you, and the -way many of the patients knew their visions intensified, their illusions -doubly strengthened, their efforts even to destroy themselves in many -cases almost more than the staff could deal with--all this brought the -matter to a climax and made my duty very plain at last." - -"And the effect upon yourself--at its worst?" asked his listener quietly. - -Stahl sighed wearily a little as he answered with a new-found sadness -in his tone. - -"I've told you briefly that," he said; "repetition cannot strengthen it. -The worthlessness of the majority of human aims today expresses it -Best--what you have called yourself the 'horror of civilization.' The -vanity of all life's modern, so-called up-to-date tendencies for outer, -mechanical developments. A wild, mad beauty streaming from that man's -personality overran the whole place and caught the lot of us, myself -especially, with a lust for simple, natural things, and with a passion -for spiritual beauty to accompany them. Fame, wealth, position seemed the -shadows then, and something else it's hard to name announced itself as -the substance.... I wanted to clear out and live with Nature, to know -simplicity, unselfish purposes, a golden state of childlike existence -close to dawns and dew and running water, cared for by woods and blessed -by all the winds...." He paused again for breath, then added:-- - -"And that's just where the mania caught at me so cunningly--till I -saw it and called a halt." - -"Ah!" - -"For the thing I sought, the thing _he_ knew, and perhaps remembered, -was not possible _in the body_. It was a spiritual state--" - -"Or to be known subjectively!" O'Malley checked him. - -"I am no lotus-eater by nature," he went on with energy, "and so I -fought and conquered it. But first, I tell you, it came upon me like a -tempest--a hurricane of wonder and delight. I've always held, like -yourself perhaps, that civilization brings its own army of diseases, and -that the few illnesses known to ruder savage races can be cured by simple -means the earth herself supplies. And along this line of thought the -thing swept into me--the line of my own head-learning. This was natural -enough; natural enough, too, that it thus at first deceived me. - -"For the quack cures of history come to this--herb simples and the -rest; only we know them now as sun-cure, water-cure, open-air cure, old -Kneipp, sea-water, and a hundred others. Doctors have never swarmed -before as they do now, and these artificial diseases civilization brings -in such quantity seemed all at once to mean the abeyance of some central -life or power men ought to share with--Nature.... You shall read it -all in my written report. I merely wish to show you now how the -insidious thing got at me along the line of my special knowledge. I saw -the truth that priests and doctors are the only possible and necessary -'professions' in the world, and--that they should be really but a single -profession...." - - - - -XLIV - - -He drew suddenly back with a kind of jerk. It was as though he realized -abruptly that he had said too much--had overdone it. He took his -companion by the arm and led him down the decks. - -As they passed the bridge the Captain called out a word of welcome -to them; and his jolly, boisterous laugh ran down the wind. The -American engineer came from behind a dark corner, almost running -into them; his face was flushed. "It's like a furnace below," he said in -his nasal familiar manner; "too hot to sleep. I've run up for a gulp of -air." He made as though he would join them. - -"The wind's behind us, yes," replied the doctor in a different tone, -"and there's no draught." With a gesture, half bow, half dismissal, he -made even this thick-skinned member of "the greatest civilization on -earth" understand he was not wanted. And they turned at the cabin door, -O'Malley a moment wondering at the admirable dignity with which the -"little" man had managed the polite dismissal. - -Himself, perhaps, he would not have minded the diversion. He was a little -weary of the German's long recital. The confession had not been complete, -he felt. Much had been held back. It was not altogether straightforward. -The dishonesty which hides in compromise peeped through it everywhere. - -And the incoherence of the latter part had almost bored him. For it -was, he easily divined, a studied incoherence. It was meant to touch a -similar weakness in himself--if there. But it was _not_ there. He saw -through the whole manoeuvre. Stahl wished to warn and save him by -showing that the experience they had partly shared was nothing but a -strange mental disorder. He wished to force in this subtle way his own -interpretation of it upon his friend. Yet at the same time the intuitive -Irishman discerned that other tendency in the man which would so -gladly perhaps have welcomed a different explanation, and even in some -fashion did actually accept it. - -O'Malley smiled inwardly as he watched him prepare the coffee as of -old. And patiently he waited for the rest that was to come. In a certain -sense it all was useful. It would be helpful later. This was an attitude -he would often have to face when he returned to civilized life and tried -to tell his Message to the thinking, educated men of today--the men he -must win over somehow to his dream--the men, without whose backing, no -Movement could hope to meet with even a measure of success. - -"So, like myself," said Stahl, as he carefully tended the flame of the -spirit-lamp between them, "you have escaped by the skin of your teeth, -as it were. And I congratulate you--heartily." - -"I thank you," said the other dryly. - -"You write your version now, and I'll write mine--indeed it is already -almost finished--then we'll compare notes. Perhaps we might even -publish them together." - -He poured out the fragrant coffee. They faced each other across the -little table. But O'Malley did not take the bait. He wished to hear the -balance his companion still might tell. - -And presently he asked for it. - -"With the discharge of your patient the trouble ceased at once, then?" - -"Comparatively soon. It gradually subsided, yes." - -"And as regards yourself?" - -"I came back to my senses. I recovered my control. The insubordinate -impulses I had known retired." He smiled as he sipped his coffee. "You -see me now," he added, looking his companion steadily in the eyes, "a -sane and commonplace ship's doctor." - -"I congratulate you--" - -"_Vielen Dank._" He bowed. - -"On what you missed, yet almost accomplished," the other finished. -"You might have known, like me, the cosmic consciousness! You might -have met the gods!" - -"In a strait-waistcoat," the doctor added with a snap. - -They laughed at one another across their coffee cups as once before -they had laughed across their glasses of Kakhetian wine--two eternally -antagonistic types that will exist as long as life itself. - -But, contrary to his expectations, the German had little more to tell. -He mentioned how the experience had led his mind into strange and -novel reading in his desire to know what other minds might have to -offer by way of explanation, even the most fanciful and far-fetched. He -told, though very briefly, how he had picked up Fechner among others, -and carefully studied his "poetic theories," and read besides the best -accounts of "spiritistic" phenomena, as also of the rarer states of -hysteria, double-consciousness, multiple personality, and even those -looser theories which suggest that a portion of the human constitution -called "astral" or "etheric" may escape from the parent center and, -carrying with it the subtler forces of desire and yearning, construct a -vivid subjective state of mind which is practically its Heaven of hope -and longing all fulfilled. - -He did not, however, betray the results upon himself of all this curious -reading and study, nor mention what he found of truth or probability in -it all. He merely quoted books and authors, in at least three languages, -that stretched in a singular and catholic array from Plato and the -Neo-Platonists across the ages to Myers, Du Prel, Flournoy, Lodge, and -Morton Prince. - -Out of the lot, perhaps,--O'Malley gathered it by inference rather -than from actual statement, from fragments of their talks upon the -outward voyage more than from anything let fall just then--Fechner -had proved the most persuasive to this man's contradictory and original -mind. It certainly seemed, at least, as if he knew some secret -sympathetic leaning toward the idea that consciousness and matter were -inseparable, and that a Cosmic Consciousness "of sorts" might pertain to -the Earth as, equally, to all the other stars and planets. The _Urwelt_ -idea he so often referred to had seized a part of his imagination--that, -at least, was clear. - -The Irishman drank it all in, but he was too exhausted now to argue, -and too full besides to ask questions. His natural volubility forsook -him. He let the doctor have his say without interruptions. He took the -warnings with the rest of it. Nothing the other said had changed him. - -It was not the first sunrise they had watched together, and as they -took the morning air on deck once more, Corsica rising like a dream -the night had left behind her on the sea, he listened with fainter -interest to the German's concluding sentences. - -"At any rate you now understand why on that other voyage I was so -eager to watch you with your friend, so keen to separate you, to prevent -your sleeping with him, and at the same time so desirous to see his -influence upon you at close quarters; and also--why I always understood -so well what was going on both outwardly and within." - -O'Malley quietly reiterated the belief he still held in the power of his -own dream. - -"I shall go home and give my message to the world," was what he said -quietly. "I think it's true." - -"It's better to keep silent," was the answer, "for, even if true, the -world is not ready yet to listen. It will evaporate, you'll find, in the -telling. You'll find there's nothing to tell. Besides, a dream like yours -must dawn on all at once, and not on merely one. No one will understand -you." - -"I can but try." - -"You will reach no men of action; and few of intellect. You will merely -stuff the dreamers who are already stuffed enough. What is the use, I -ask you? What is the use?" - -"It will set the world on fire for simplicity," the other murmured, -knowing the great sweet passion flame within him as he watched the -sun come slowly out of the rosy sea. "All the use in the world." - -"None," was the laconic answer. - -"They might know the gods!" cried O'Malley, using the phrase that -symbolized for him the entire Vision. - -Stahl looked at him for some time before he spoke. Again that -expression of wistful, almost longing admiration shone in the brown -eyes. - -"My friend," he answered gravely, "men do not want to know the gods. They -prefer their delights less subtle. They crave the cruder physical -sensations that bang them toward excitement--" - -"Of disease, of pain, of separateness," put in the other. - -The German shrugged his shoulders. "It's the stage they're at," he -said. "You, if you have success, will merely make a few uncomfortable. -The majority will hardly turn their heads. To one in a million you may -bring peace and happiness." - -"It's worth it," cried the Irishman, "even for that one!" - -Stahl answered very gently, smiling with his new expression of tenderness -and sympathy. "Dream your great dream if you will, but dream it, my -friend, alone--in peace and silence. That 'one' I speak of is yourself." - -The doctor pressed his hand and turned toward his cabin. O'Malley -stood a little longer to share the sunrise. Neither spoke another word. -He heard the door shut softly behind him. The unspoken answer in his -mind was in two words--two common little adjectives: "Coward and -selfish!" - -But Stahl, once in the privacy of his cabin, judging by the glance -visible on his face ere he closed the door, may probably have known a -very different thought. And possibly he uttered it below his breath. A -sigh most certainly escaped his lips, a sigh half sadness, half relief. -For O'Malley remembered it afterwards. - -"Beautiful, foolish dreamer among men! But, thank God, harmless--to -others and--himself." - -And soon afterwards O'Malley also went to his cabin. Before sleep took -him he lay deep in a mood of sadness--almost as though he had heard his -friend's unspoken thought. He realized the insuperable difficulties -that lay before him. The world would think him "mad but harmless." - -Then, with full sleep, he slipped across that sunrise and found the -old-world Garden. He held the eternal password. - -"I can but try...!" - - - - -XLV - - -And here the crowded, muddled notebooks come to an end. The rest was -action--and inevitable disaster. - -The brief history of O'Malley's mad campaign may be imagined. To a writer -who found interest in the study of forlorn hopes and their leaders, a -detailed record of this particular one might seem worth while. For me -personally it is too sad and too pathetic. I cannot bring myself to tell, -much less to analyze the story of a broken heart, when that heart and -story are those of a close and deeply admired intimate, a man who gave me -genuine love and held my own. - -Besides, although a curious chapter in uncommon human nature, it -is not by any means a new one. It is the true story of many a poet and -dreamer since the world began, though perhaps not often told nor even -guessed. And only the poets themselves, especially the little poets who -cannot utter half the fire that consumes them, may know the searing -pain and passion and the true inwardness of it all. - -Most of those months it chanced I was away, and only fragments of -the foolish enterprise could reach me. But nothing, I think, could have -stopped him, nor any worldly selfish wisdom made him even pause. -The thing possessed him utterly; it had to flame its way out as best it -could. To high and low, he preached by every means in his power the -Simple Life; he preached the mystical life as well--that the true -knowledge and the true progress are within, that they both pertain to -the inner being and have no chief concern with external things. He -preached it wildly, lopsidedly, in or out of season, knowing no half -measures. His enthusiasm obscured his sense of proportion and the -extravagance hid the germ of truth that undeniably lay in his message. - -To put the movement on its feet at first he realized every possession -that he had. It left him penniless, if he was not almost so already, and -in the end it left him smothered beneath the glory of his blinding and -unutterable Dream. He never understood that suggestion is more effective -than a sledge-hammer. His faith was no mere little seed of mustard, -but a full-fledged forest singing its message in a wind of thunder. He -shouted it aloud to the world. - -I think the acid disappointment that lies beneath that trite old phrase -"a broken heart" was never really his; for indeed it seemed that his -cruel, ludicrous failure merely served to strengthen hope and purpose by -making him seek for a better method of imparting what he had to say. -In the end he learned the bitter lesson to the full. But faith never -trailed a single feather. Those jeering audiences in the Park; those -empty benches in many a public hall, those brief, ignoring paragraphs in -the few newspapers that filled a vacant corner by labeling him crank and -long-haired prophet; even the silence that greeted his pamphlets, his -letters to the Press, and all the rest, hurt him for others rather than -for himself. His pain was altruistic, never personal. His dream and -motive, his huge, unwieldy compassion, his genuine love for humanity, all -were big enough for that. - -And so, I think, he missed the personal mortification that disappointment -so deep might bring to dreamers with an aim less unadulteratedly -pure. His eye was single to the end. He attributed only the highest -motives to all who offered help. The very quacks and fools who flocked -to his banner, eager to exploit their smaller fads by joining them to his -own, he welcomed, only regretting that, as Stahl had warned him, he -could not attract a better class of mind. He did not even see through -the manoeuvres of the occasional women of wealth and title who sought -to conceal their own mediocrity by advertising in their drawing-rooms -the eccentricities of men like himself. And to the end he had the courage -of his glorious convictions. - -The change of method that he learned at last, moreover, was -characteristic of this faith and courage. - -"I've begun at the wrong end," he said; "I shall never reach men through -their intellects. Their brains today are occupied by the machine-made -gods of civilization. I cannot change the direction of their thoughts and -lusts from outside; the momentum is too great to stop that way. I must -get at them from within. To reach their hearts, the new ideas must rise -up _from within_. I see the truer way. I must do it _from the other -side_. It must come to them--in Beauty." - -For he was to the last convinced that death would merge him in the -being of the Earth's Collective Consciousness, and that, lost in her deep -eternal beauty, he thus might reach the hearts of men in some stray -glimpse of nature's loveliness, and register his flaming message. He -loved to quote from Adonais: - -"He is made one with Nature: there is heard -His voice in all her music, from the moan -Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; -He is a presence to be felt and known -In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, -Spreading itself where'er that Power may move -Which has withdrawn his being to its own. -He is a portion of the loveliness -Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear -His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress -Sweeps through the dull dense world..." - -And this thought, phrased in a dozen different ways, was always on his -lips. To dream was right and useful, even to dream alone, because the -beauty of the dream must add to the beauty of the Whole of which it is a -part and an interpretation. It was not really lost or vain. All must come -back in time to feed the world. He had known gracious thoughts of Earth -too big to utter, almost too big to hold. Such thoughts could not ever be -really told; they were incommunicable. For the mystical revelation is -incommunicable. It has authority only for him who feels it. A corporate -revelation is impossible. Only those among men could know, in whose -hearts it rose intuitively and made its presence felt as innate ideas. -Inspiration brings it, and beauty is the vehicle. Their hearts must -change before their minds could be reached. - -"I can work it better from the other side--from that old, old Garden -which is the Mother's heart. In this way I can help at any rate...!" - - - - -XLVI - - -It was at the close of a wet and foggy autumn that we met again, winter -in the air, all London desolate; and his wasted, forlorn appearance told -me the truth at once. Only the passionate eagerness of voice and manner -were there to prove that the spirit had not weakened. There glowed within -a fire that showed itself in the translucent shining of the eyes and -face. - -"I've made one great discovery, old man," he exclaimed with old, -familiar, high enthusiasm, "one great discovery at least." - -"You've made so many," I answered cheerfully, while my real thoughts were -busy with his bodily state of health. For his appearance shocked me. He -stood among a litter of papers, books, neckties, nailed boots, knapsacks, -maps and what-not, that rolled upon the floor from the mouth of the -Willesden canvas sack. His old grey flannel suit hung literally upon a -bag of bones; all the life there was seemed concentrated in his face and -eyes--those far-seeing, light blue eyes. They were darker than usual now, -eyes like the sea, I thought. His hair, long and disordered, -tumbled over his forehead. He was pale, and at the same time flushed. It -was almost a disembodied spirit that I saw. - -"You've made so many. I love to hear them. Is this one finer than the -others?" - -He looked a moment at me through and through, almost uncannily. He looked -in reality beyond me. It was something else he saw, and in the dusk I -turned involuntarily. - -"Simpler," he said quickly, "much simpler." - -He moved up close beside me, whispering. Was it all imagination that a -breath of flowers came with him? There was certainly a curious fragrance -in the air, wild and sweet like orchards in the spring. - -"And it is--?" - -"That the Garden's _everywhere!_ You needn't go to the distant Caucasus -to find it. It's all about this old London town, and in these foggy -streets and dingy pavements. It's even in this cramped, undusted room. -Now at this moment, while that lamp flickers and the thousands go to -sleep. The gates of horn and ivory are here," he tapped his breast. "And -here the flowers, the long, clean open hills, the giant herd, the nymphs, -the sunshine and the gods!" - -So attached was he now to that little room in Paddington where his books -and papers lay, that when the curious illness that had caught him grew so -much worse, and the attacks of the nameless fever that afflicted him -turned serious, I hired a bedroom for him in the same house. And it was -in that poky, cage-like den he breathed his last. - -His illness I called curious, his fever nameless, because they really -were so and puzzled every one. He simply faded out of life, it seemed; -there was no pain, no sleeplessness, no suffering of any physical kind. -He uttered no complaint, nor were there symptoms of any known -disorder. - -"Your friend is sound organically," the doctor told me when I pressed him -for the truth there on the stairs, "sound as a bell. He wants the open -air and plenty of wholesome food, that's all. His body is ill-nourished. -His trouble is mental--some deep and heavy disappointment doubtless. If -you can change the current of his thoughts, awaken interest in common -things, and give him change of scene, perhaps--" He shrugged his -shoulders and looked very grave. - -"You think he's dying?" - -"I think, yes, he is dying." - -"From--?" - -"From lack of living pure and simple," was the answer. "He has lost -all hold on life." - -"He has abundant vitality still." - -"Full of it. But it all goes--elsewhere. The physical organism gets -none of it." - -"Yet mentally," I asked, "there's nothing actually wrong?" - -"Not in the ordinary sense. The mind is clear and active. So far as I -can test it, the process of thought is healthy and undamaged. It seems -to me--" - -He hesitated a moment on the doorstep while the driver wound the -motor handle. I waited with a sinking heart for the rest of the sentence. - -"...like certain cases of nostalgia I have known--very rare and very -difficult to deal with. Acute and vehement nostalgia, yes, sometimes -called a broken heart," he added, pausing another instant at the carriage -door, "in which the entire stream of a man's inner life flows to some -distant place, or person, or--or to some imagined yearning that he -craves to satisfy." - -"To a dream?" - -"It _might_ be even that," he answered slowly, stepping in. "It might be -spiritual. The religious and poetic temperament are most open to it, -_and_ the most difficult to deal with when afflicted." He emphasized the -little word as though the doubt he felt was far less strong than the -conviction he only half concealed. "If you would save him, try to change -the direction of his thoughts. There is nothing--in all honesty I must -say it--nothing that I can do to help." - -And then, pulling at the grey tuft on his chin and looking keenly at me a -moment over his glasses,--"Those flowers," he said hesitatingly, "you -might move those flowers from the room, perhaps. Their perfume is a -trifle strong ... It might be better." Again he looked sharply at me. -There was an odd expression in his eyes. And in my heart there was an -odd sensation too, so odd that I found myself bereft a moment of any -speech at all, and when my tongue became untied, the carriage was -already disappearing down the street. For in that dingy sick-room there -were no flowers at all, yet the perfume of woods and fields and open -spaces had reached the doctor too, and obviously perplexed him. - -"Change the direction of his thoughts!" I went indoors, wondering -how any honest and even half-unselfish friend, knowing what I knew, -could follow such advice. With what but the lowest motive, of keeping -him alive for my own happiness, could I seek to change his thoughts -of some imagined joy and peace to the pain and sordid facts of an -earthly existence that he loathed? - -But when I turned I saw the tousled yellow-headed landlady standing -in the breach. Mrs. Heath stopped me in the hall to inquire whether I -could say "anythink abart the rent per'aps?" Her manner was defiant. I -found three months were owing. - -"It's no good arsking 'im," she said, though not unkindly on the -whole. "I'm sick an' tired of always being put off. He talks about the -gawds and a Mr. Pan, or some such gentleman who he says will look -after it all. But I never sees 'im--not this Mr. Pan. And his stuff up -there," jerking her head toward the little room, "ain't worth a -Sankey-moody 'ymn-book, take the lot of it at cost!" - -I reassured her. It was impossible to help smiling. For some minds, -I reflected, a Sankey hymn-book might hold dreams that were every bit -as potent as his own, and far less troublesome. But that "Mr. Pan, or -some such gentleman" should serve as a "reference" between lodger and -landlady was an unwitting comment on the modern point of view that -made me want to cry rather than to laugh. O'Malley and Mrs. Heath -between them had made a profounder criticism than they knew. - - * * * * * - -And so by slow degrees he went, leaving the outer fury for the inner -peace. The center of consciousness gradually shifted from the transient -form which is the true ghost, to the deeper, permanent state which is -the eternal reality. For this was how he phrased it to me in one of our -last, strange talks. He watched his own withdrawal. - -In bed he would lie for hours with fixed and happy eyes, staring -apparently at nothing, the expression on his face quite radiant. The -pulse sank often dangerously low; he scarcely seemed to breathe; yet it -was never complete unconsciousness or trance. My voice, when I found the -heart to try and coax his own for speech, would win him back. The eyes -would then grow dimmer, losing their happier light, as he turned to the -outer world to look at me. - -"The pull is so tremendous now," he whispered; "I was far, so far -away, in the deep life of Earth. Why do you bring me back to all these -little pains? I can do nothing here; _there_ I am of use..." - -He spoke so low I had to bend my head to catch the words. It was -very late at night and for hours I had been watching by his side. Outside -an ugly yellow fog oppressed the town, but about him like an atmosphere -I caught again that fragrance as of trees and flowers. It was too -faint for any name--that fugitive, mild perfume one meets upon bare -hills and round the skirts of forests. It was somehow, I fancied, in the -very breath. - -"Each time the effort to return is greater. In there I am complete and -full of power. I can work and send my message back so splendidly. Here," -he glanced down at his wasted body with a curious smile, "I am only -on the fringe--it's pain and failure. All so ineffective." - -That other look came back into the eyes, more swiftly than before. - -"I thought you might like to speak, to tell me--something," I said, -keeping the tears with difficulty from my voice. "Is there no one you -would like to see?" - -He shook his head slowly, and gave the peculiar answer: - -"They're all in there." - -"But Stahl, perhaps--if I could get him here?" - -An expression of gentle disapproval crossed his face, then melted -softly into a wistful tenderness as of a child. - -"He's not there--yet," he whispered, "but he will come too in the -end. In sleep, I think, he goes there even now." - -"Where are you _really_ then?" I ventured, "And where is it you go to?" - -The answer came unhesitatingly; there was no doubt or searching. - -"Into myself, my real and deeper self, and so beyond it into her--the -Earth. Where all the others are--all, all, all." - -And then he frightened me by sitting up in bed abruptly. His eyes -stared past me--out beyond the close confining walls. The movement -was so startling with its suddenness and vigor that I shrank back a -moment. The head was sideways. He was intently listening. - -"Hark!" he whispered. "They are calling me! Do you hear...?" - -The look of joy that broke over the face like sunshine made me hold -my breath. Something in his low voice thrilled me beyond all I have -ever known. I listened too. Only the rumble of the traffic down the -distant main street broke the silence, the rattle of a nearer cart, and -the footsteps of a few pedestrians. No other noises came across the -night. There was no wind. Thick yellow fog muffled everything. - -"I hear nothing," I answered softly. "What is it that _you_ hear?" - -And, making no reply, he presently lay down again among the pillows, that -look of joy and glory still upon his face. It lay there to the end like -sunrise. - -The fog came in so thickly through the window that I rose to close -it. He never closed that window, and I hoped he would not notice. For -a sound of wretched street-music was coming nearer--some beggar playing -dismally upon a penny whistle--and I feared it would disturb him. But in -a flash he was up again. - -"No, no!" he cried, raising his voice for the first time that night. "Do -not shut it. I shan't be able to hear then. Let all the air come in. Open -it wider... wider! I love that sound!" - -"The fog--" - -"There is no fog. It's only sun and flowers and music. Let them in. -Don't you hear it now?" he added. And, more to bring him peace than -anything else, I bowed my head to signify agreement. For the last -confusion of the mind, I saw, was upon him, and he made the outer -world confirm some imagined detail of his inner dream. I drew the sash -down lower, covering his body closely with the blankets. He flung them -off impatiently at once. The damp and freezing night rushed in upon -us like a presence. It made me shudder, but O'Malley only raised himself -upon one elbow to taste it better, and--to listen. - -Then, waiting patiently for the return of the quiet, trance-like state -when I might cover him again, I moved toward the window and looked -out. The street was empty, save for that beggar playing vilely on his -penny whistle. The wretch came to a standstill immediately before the -house. The lamplight fell from the room upon his tattered, broken -figure. I could not see his face. He groped and felt his way. - -Outside that homeless wanderer played his penny pipe in the night -of cold and darkness. - -Inside the Dreamer listened, dreaming of his gods and garden, his -great Earth Mother, his visioned life of peace and simple things with a -living Nature... - -And I felt somehow that player watched us. I made an angry sign to -him to go. But it was the sudden touch upon my arm that made me -turn round with such a sudden start that I almost cried aloud. O'Malley -in his night-clothes stood close against me on the floor, slight as a -spirit, eyes a-shine, lips moving faintly into speech through the most -wonderful smile a human face has ever shown me. - -"Do not send him away," he whispered, joy breaking from him like -a light, "but tell him that I love it. Go out and thank him. Tell him I -hear and understand, and say that I am coming. Will you...?" - -Something within me whirled. It seemed that I was lifted from my -feet a moment. Some tide of power rushed from his person to my own. -The room was filled with blinding light. But in my heart there rose a -great emotion that combined tears and joy and laughter all at once. - -"The moment you are back in bed," I heard my voice like one speaking from -a distance, "I'll go--" - -The momentary, wild confusion passed as suddenly as it came. I -remember he obeyed at once. As I bent down to tuck the clothes about -him, that fragrance as of flowers and open spaces rose about my bending -face like incense--bewilderingly sweet. - -And the next second I was standing in the street. The man who played -upon the pipe, I saw, was blind. His hand and fingers were curiously -large. - -I was already close, ready to press all that my pockets held into his -hand--ay, and far more than merely pockets held because O'Malley -said he loved the music--when something made me turn my head away. -I cannot say precisely what it was, for first it seemed a tapping at the -window of his room behind me, and then a little noise within the room -itself, and next--more curious than either,--a feeling that something -came out rushing past me through the air. It whirled and shouted as it -went... - -I only remember clearly that in the very act of turning, and while my -look still held that beggar's face within the field of vision, I saw the -sightless eyes turn bright a moment as though he opened them and saw. -He did most certainly smile; to that I swear. - -But when I turned again the street immediately about me was empty. -The beggar-man was gone. - -And down the pavement, moving swiftly through the curtain of fog, -I saw his vanishing figure. It was large and spreading. In the fringe of -light the lamp-post gave, its upper edges seemed far above the ground. -Someone else was with him. There were two figures. - -I heard that sound of piping far away. It sounded faint and almost -flute-like in the air. And in the mud at my feet the money lay--spurned -utterly. I heard the last coins ring upon the pavement as they settled. -But in the room, when I got back, the body of Terence O'Malley had -ceased to breathe. - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Centaur, by Algernon Blackwood - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENTAUR *** - -***** This file should be named 9964.txt or 9964.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/6/9964/ - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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