While the Prometheans thus, individually and collectively fermenting,
floundered between old and new interpretations of a strange occurrence,
in another part of London something was happening, of its kind so
real, so interesting, that one and all would eagerly have renounced a
favourite shibboleth or pet desire to witness it. Kempster would have
eaten a raw beefsteak, Lattimer have agreed to rebirth as a woman, Mrs.
Towzer have swallowed whisky neat, and even Toogood have written a
signed confession that his "psychometry," was intelligent guesswork.
It is the destiny, however, of such students of the wonderful to
receive their data invariably at second or third hand; the data may
deal with genuine occurrences, but the student seems never himself
present at the time. From books, from reports, from accounts of someone
who knew an actual witness, the student generally receives the version
he then proceeds to study and elaborate.
In this particular instance, moreover, no version ever reached their
ears at all, either at second or third hand, because the only witness
of what happened was Edward Fillery, and he mentioned it to no one. Its
reality, its interpretation likewise, remained authoritative only for
that expert, if unstable, mind that experienced the one and divined the
other.
His conversation with Devonham over, and the latter having retired to
his room, Fillery paid a last visit to the patient who was now his
private care, instead of merely an inmate of the institution that was
half a Home and half a Spiritual Clinique. The figure lay sleeping
quietly, the lean, muscular body bare to the wind that blew upon it
from the open window. Graceful, motionless, both pillow and coverings
rejected, "N. H." breathed the calm, regular breath of deepest slumber.
The light from the door just touched the face and folded hands, the
features wore no expression of any kind, the hair, drawn back from the
forehead and temples, almost seemed to shine.
Through the window came the rustle of the tossing branches, but the
night air, though damp, was neither raw nor biting, and Fillery did not
replace the sheets upon the great sleeping body. He withdrew as softly
as he entered. Knowing he would not close an eye that night, he left
the house silently and walked out into the deserted streets....
The rain had ceased, but the wet wind rushed in gusts against him, the
soft blows and heavy moisture acting as balm to his somewhat tired
nerves. As with great elemental hands, the windy darkness stroked him,
soothing away the intense excitement he had felt, muting a thousand
eager questions. They stroked his brain into a gentler silence
gradually. "Don't think, don't think," night whispered all about him,
"but feel, feel, feel. What you want to know will come to you by
feeling now." He obeyed instinctively. Down the long, empty streets he
passed, swinging his stick, tapping the lampposts, noting how steady
their light held in the wind, noting the tossing trees in little
gardens, noting occasionally rifts of moonlight between the racing
clouds, but relinquishing all attempt to think.
He counted the steps between the lamp-posts as he swung along, leaving
the kerb at each crossing with his left foot, taking the new one with
his right, planting each boot safely in the centre of each paving
stone, establishing, in a word, a sort of rhythm as he moved. He
did so, however, without being consciously aware of it. He was not
aware, indeed, of anything but that he swung along with this pleasant
rhythmical stride that rested his body, though the exercise was
vigorous.
And the night laid her deep peace upon him as he went....
The streets grew narrower, twisted, turned and ran uphill; the houses
became larger, spaced farther apart, less numerous, their gardens
bigger, with groups of trees instead of isolated specimens. He emerged
suddenly upon the open heath, tasting a newer, sweeter air. The huge
city lay below him now, but the rough, shouting wind drowned its
distant roar completely. For a time he stood and watched its twinkling
lights across the vapours that hung between, then turned towards the
little pond. He knew it well. Its waves flew dancing happily. The
familiar outline of Jack Straw's Castle loomed beyond. The square
enclosure of the anti-aircraft gun rattled with a metallic sound in the
wind....
He had been walking for the best part of two hours now, thinking
nothing but feeling only, and his surface-consciousness, perhaps, lay
still, inactive. The mind was quiescent certainly, his being subdued
and lulled by the rhythmic movement which had gained upon his entire
system. The sails of his ship hung idly, becalmed above the profound
deeps below. It was these deeps, the mysterious and inexhaustible
region below the surface, that now began to stir. There stole upon him
a dim prophetic sense as of horizons lifting and letting in new light.
He glanced about him. The moon was brighter certainly, the flying scud
was thinning, though the dawn was still some hours away. But it was not
the light of moon or sun or stars he looked for; it was no outer light.
The little waves fell splashing at his feet. He watched them for a long
time, keeping very still; his heart, his mind, his nerves, his muscles,
all were very still.... He became aware that new big powers were alert
and close, hovering above the world, feathering the Race like wings of
mighty birds. The waters were being troubled....
He turned and walked slowly, but ever with the same pleasant rhythm
that was in him, to the pine trees, where he paused a minute, listening
to the branches shaking and singing, then retraced his steps along the
ridge, every yard of which, though blurred in darkness, he knew and
recognized. Below, on his left lay London, on his right stretched the
familiar country, though now invisible, past Hendon with its Welsh
Harp, Wembley, and on towards Harrow, whose church steeple would catch
the sunrise before very long. He reached the little pond again and
heard its small waves rushing and tumbling in the south-west wind. He
stood and watched them, listening to their musical wash and gurgle.
The waters, yes, were being troubled.... Despite the buffeting wind,
the world lay even stiller now about him; no single human being had he
seen; even stiller than before, too, lay heart and mind within him;
the latter held no single picture. He was aware, yes, of horizons
lifting, of great powers alert and close; the interior light increased.
He felt, but he did not think. Into the empty chamber of his being,
swept and garnished, flashed suddenly, then, as in picture form, the
memory of "N. H." All that he knew about him came at once: Paul's
notes and journey, the London scenes and talks, his own observations,
deductions, questionings, his dreams, and fears and yearnings, his hope
and wonder--all came in a clapping instant, complete and simultaneous.
Into his opened subconscious being floated the power and the presence
of that bright messenger who brought glad tidings to his life.
"N. H." stood beside him, whispering with lips that were the darkness,
and with words that were the wind. It was the power and presence
of "N. H." that lifted the horizon and let in light. His body lay
sleeping miles away in that bed against an open window. This was his
real presence. Without words, as without thought, understanding came.
The appeal of "N. H." was direct to the subliminal mind; it was the
hidden nine-tenths he stimulated; hence came the intensification of
consciousness in all who had to do with him. And it operated now.
Fillery was aware of defying time and space, as though there were no
limits to his being. Faith lights fires.... Perception wandered down
those dusky by-ways _behind_ the mind that lead through trackless
depths where the massed heritage of the world-soul, lit sometimes by a
flashing light, reveal incredible, incalculable things. One of those
flashes came now. Through the fissures, as it were, of his unstable
being rose the marvellous, uncanny gleam. His eyes were opened and he
saw.
The label, he realized, was incorrect, inadequate--"N. H." was a
misnomer; more than human, both different to and greater than, came
nearer to the truth. A being from other conditions certainly, belonging
to another order; an order whose work was unremitting service rendered
with joy and faithfulness; a hierarchy whose service included the
entire universe, the stars and suns and nebulæ, earth with her frail
humanity but an insignificant fraction of it all....
He came, of course, from that central sea of energy whence all life,
pushing irresistibly outwards into form, first arises. Like human
beings, he came thence undoubtedly, but more directly than they, in
more intimate relations, therefore, with the elemental powers that
build up form and shape the destinies of matter. One only of a mighty
host of varying degrees and powers, his services lay interwoven with
the very heart and processes of Nature herself. The energies of heat
and air, essentials of all life everywhere, were his handmaidens; he
worked with fire and wind; in the forms he helped to build he set
enthusiasm and energy aglow....
From stars and fire-mist he came now into humanity, using the limited
instrument of a human mechanism, a mechanism he must learn to master
without breaking it. A human brain and nerves confined him. He could
deal with essences only, those essential, buried, semi-elemental
powers that lie ever waiting below the threshold of all human
consciousness, linking men, did they but know it, direct with the sea
of universal life which is inexhaustible, independent of space and
time. The fraction of his nature which had manifested as a transient
surface-personality--LeVallon--was gone for ever, merged in the real
self below.
His origin was already forgotten; no memory of it lay in his present
brain; he must suffer training, education, and he turned instinctively
to those whose ideal, like his own, was one of impersonal service. To
a woman he turned, and to a man. His recognition, guided by Nature,
was sure and accurate. It must take time and patience, sympathy and
love, faith, belief and trust, and the labour must be borne by one
man chiefly--by Fillery, into whose life had come this strange bright
messenger carrying glad tidings ... to prove at last that man was
greater than he knew, that the hope for Humanity, for the deteriorating
Race, for crumbling Civilization, lay in drawing out into full
practical consciousness the divine powers concealed below the threshold
of every single man and woman....
But how, in what practical manner, what instrument could they use?
The human mechanism, the brain, the mind, afforded inadequate means
of manifestation; new wines into old skins meant disaster; knowledge,
power beyond the experience of the Race needed a better instrument than
the one the Race had painfully evolved for present uses. New powers
of unknown kinds, as already in those rare cases when the supernormal
forces emerged, could only strain the machinery and cause disorder. A
new order of consciousness required another, a different equipment.
And the idea flashed into him, as in the Studio when he watched "N.
H." and the girl--Father Collins had divined its possibility as
well--the idea of a group consciousness, a collective group-soul.
What a single individual might not be able to resist at first without
disaster, many--a group in harmony--two or three gathered together in
unison--these might provide the way, the means, the instrument--the
body.
"The personal merged in the impersonal," he exclaimed to the night
about him, already aware that words, expression, failed even at this
early stage of understanding. "Beauty, Art! Where words, form, colour
end, we shall construct, while yet using these as far as they go, a new
vehicle, a new----"
"Good evenin'," said a gruff voice. "Good evenin', sir," it added more
respectfully, after a second's inspection. "Turned out quite fine after
the storm."
Aware of the policeman suddenly, Fillery started and turned round
abruptly. Evidently he had uttered his thoughts aloud, probably had
cried and shouted them. He could think of nothing in the world to say.
"It was a terrible storm. I hardly ever see the likes of it." The man
was looking at him still with doubtful curiosity.
"Extraordinary, yes." Dr. Fillery managed to find a few natural words.
It was an early hour in the morning to be out, and his position by the
pond, he now realized, might have suggested an undesirable intention.
"It made sleep impossible, and I came out to--to take a walk. I'm a
doctor, Dr. Fillery--the Fillery Home."
"Yes, sir," said the man, apparently satisfied. He looked at the sky.
"All blown away again," he remarked, "and the moon that nice and
bright----"
Fillery offered something in reply, then moved away. The moon, he
noticed, was indeed nice and bright now; the heavy lower vapours all
had vanished, and thin cirrus clouds at a great height moved slowly
before an upper wind; the stars shone clearly, and a faint line of
colour gave a hint of dawn not far away.
He glanced at his watch. It was nearly half-past four.
"It's impossible, impossible," he thought to himself, the pictures
he had been seeing still hanging before his eyes. "It was all
feeling--merely feeling. My blood, my heritage asserting themselves
upon an over-tired system! Too much repression evidently. I must find
an outlet. My Caucasian Valley again!"
He walked rapidly. His mind began to work, and thinking made
an effort to replace feeling. He watched himself. His everyday
surface-consciousness partially resumed its sway. The policeman, of
course, had interrupted the flow and inrush of another state just at
the moment when a flash of direct knowledge was about to blaze. It
concerned "N. H.," his new patient. In another moment he would have
known exactly what and who he was, whence he came, the purpose and the
powers that attended him. The policeman--and inner laughter ran through
him at this juxtaposition of the practical and the transcendental--had
interfered with an interesting expansion of his being. An extension
of consciousness, perhaps a touch of cosmic consciousness, was on the
way. The first faint quiver of its coming, magical with wondrous joy,
had touched him. Its cause, its origin, he knew not, yet he could trace
both to the effect produced upon him by "N. H." Of that he was sure.
This effect his reasoning mind, with busy analysis and criticism,
had hitherto partially suppressed, even at its first manifestation
in Charing Cross Station. To-night, criticism silent and analysis
inactive, it had found an outlet, his own deep inner stillness had been
its opportunity. Then came the practical, honest, simple policeman,
the censor, who received so much a week to keep people in the way they
ought to follow, the safe, broad way....
He smiled, as he walked rapidly along the deserted streets. He knew so
well the method and process of these abnormal states in others. As he
swung along, not tired now, but rested, rather, and invigorated, the
rhythm of motion established itself again. "N. H." a Nature Spirit! A
Nature Being! Another order of life entering humanity for the first
time, that humanity for whose welfare it--or was it he?--had worked,
with hosts of similar beings, during incalculable ages....
He smiled, remembering the policeman again. There was always a
policeman, or a censor. Oh, the exits beyond safe normal states of
being, the exits into extended fields of consciousness, into an outer
life which the majority, led by the best minds of the day, deny with an
oath--these were well guarded! His smile, as he thought of it, ran from
his lips and settled in the eyes, lingering a moment there before it
died away....
How quiet, yet unfamiliar, the suburb of the huge city lay about him
in pale half-light. The Studio scene, how distant it seemed now in
space and time; it had happened weeks ago in another city somewhere.
Devonham, his cautious, experienced assistant, how far away! He
belonged to another age. The Prometheans were part of a dream in
childhood, a dream of pantomime or harlequinade whose extravagance
yet conveyed symbolic meaning. Two figures alone retained a reality
that refused to be dismissed--a mysterious, enigmatic youth, a radiant
girl--with perhaps a third--a broken priest....
The rhythm, meanwhile, gained upon him, and, as it did so, thinking
once more withdrew and feeling stole back softly. His being became more
harmonized, more one with itself, more open to inspiration.... "N. H.,"
whose work was service, service everywhere, not merely in that tiny
corner of the universe called Humanity.... "N. H.," who could neither
age nor die.... What was the hidden link that bound them? Had they not
served and played together in some lost Caucasian valley, leaped with
the sun's hot fire, flown in the winds of dawn ... sung, laughed and
danced at their service, with a radiant sylph-like girl who had at
last enticed them into the confinement of a limited human form?... Did
not that valley symbolize, indeed, another state of existence, another
order of consciousness altogether that lay beyond any known present
experience or description...?
The dawn, meanwhile, grew nearer and a pallid light ran down the
dreadful streets.... He reached at length the foot of the hill upon
whose shoulder his own house stood. The familiar sights stirred more
familiar currents of feeling, and these in turn sought words....
The crowding houses, with their tight-shut windows, followed and
pressed after as he climbed. They swarmed behind him. How choked and
airless it all was. He thought of the heavy-footed routine of the
thousands who occupied these pretentious buildings. Here lived a
section of the greatest city on the planet, almost a separate little
town, with marked characteristics, atmosphere, tastes and habits.
How many, he wondered, behind those walls knew yearning, belief,
imagination beyond the ruck and routine of familiar narrow thought?
Rows upon rows, with their stunted, manufactured trees, hideous
conservatories, bulging porches, ornamented windows--his wings beat
against them all with the burning desire to set their inmates free.
They caged themselves in deliberately. A few thousand years ago these
people lived in mud huts, before that in caves, before that again in
trees. Now they were "civilized." They dwelt in these cages. Oh, that
he might tear away the thick dead bricks, and let in light and dew and
stars, and the brave, free winds of heaven! Waken the deeper powers
they carried unwittingly about with them through all their tedious
sufferings! Teach them that they were greater than they knew!
The yearning was deep and true in him, as the houses followed and
tried to bar his way. Many of the occupiers, he knew, would welcome
help, would gaze with happy, astonished eyes at the wonder of their
own greater selves set free. Not all, of course, were wingless. Yet
the majority, he felt, were otherwise. They peered at him from behind
thick curtains, hostile, sceptical, contented with their lot, averse
to change. Mode, custom, habit chained them to the floor. He was
aware of a collective obstinate grin of smug complacency, of dull
resistance. Though a part of the community, of the race, of the world,
of the universe itself, they denied their mighty brotherhood, and
clung tenaciously to their idea of living apart, cut off and separate.
They belonged to leagues, societies, clubs and circles, but the bigger
oneness of the race they did not know. Of greater powers in themselves
they had no faintest inkling. At the first sign of these, they would
shuffle, sneer and turn away, grow frightened even.
The yearning to show them a bigger field of consciousness, to help them
towards a realization of their buried powers, to let them out of their
separate cages, beat through his being with a passionate sincerity....
In a hundred thousand years perhaps! Perhaps in a million! He knew the
slow gait that Nature loved. The trend of an Age is not to be stemmed
by one man, nor by twelve, who see over the horizon. The futility of
trying pained him. Yet, if no one ever tried! Oh, for a few swift
strokes of awful sacrifice--then freedom!
The words came back to him, and with them, from the same source, came
others: "I sit and I weave.... I sit and I weave."... Whose, then, was
this divine, eternal patience?...
There could be, it seemed, no hurried growth, no instant escape, no
sudden leap to heaven. Slowly, slowly, the Ages turned the wheel. "Nor
can other beings help," he remembered; "they can only tell what their
own part is."... And as his clear mind saw the present Civilization
like all its wonderful predecessors, tottering before his very eyes,
threatening in its collapse, the extinction of knowledge so slowly,
painfully, laboriously acquired, the deep heart in him rose as on wings
of wind and fire, questing the stars above. There was this strange
clash in him, as though two great divisions in his being struggled. A
way of escape seemed just within his reach, only a little beyond the
horizon of his actual knowledge. It fluttered marvellously; golden,
alight, inviting. Its coming glory brushed his insight. It was simple,
it was divine. There seemed a faint knocking against the doors of his
mental and spiritual understanding....
"'N. H.'!" he cried, "Bright Messenger!"
He paused a moment and stood still. A new sound lay suddenly in the
night. It came, apparently, from far away, almost from the air above
him. He listened. No, after all it was only steps. They came nearer.
A pedestrian, muffled to the ears, went past, and the steps died away
on the resounding pavement round the corner. Yet the sound continued,
and was not the echo of the steps just gone. It was, moreover, he now
felt convinced, in the air above him. It was continuous. It reminded
him of the musical droning hum that a big bell leaves behind it, while
a suggestion of rhythm, almost of melody, ran faintly through it too.
Somebody's lines--was it Shelley's?--ran faintly in his mind, yet it
was not his mind now that surged and rose to the new great rhythm:
"'Tis the deep music of the rolling world
Kindling within the strings of the waved air
Æolian modulations....
Clear, icy, keen awakening tones
That pierce the sense
And live within the soul...."
He listened. It was a simple, natural, happy sound--simple as running
water, natural as wind, happy as the song of birds....