against that purple hill. So people still live and move outside; they
can move then, they can go where they wish. But he sees the sun, and
the breath of heaven comes in, and the night is passed. He is tired
with this warring against the night, but the light has come and the
clearer, brighter river is flowing again. This is day.
What is this land where the spirit has been living? Is it the land of
Beulah or the Valley of the Shadow? Which is most real? He knows which
is most substantial, but why is it most real? The instrument is more
substantial than the melody and infinitely less real. Yet when the veil
grows thin which hides the glory of the vision, agonizing we entreat
that it may not be removed and show the glory of the face.
II
“The luminous
Star-inwrought, beautiful
Folds of the Veil.”
Many have written of the journey down to the dark river; few have told
of the road backward from the river’s brink; a road of sudden ecstasies
and sordid pitfalls.
For the radiance lay over the earth when he turned his face to it
again. Nothing was ever sweeter than the sight of palm leaves against
the blue upon the banks of the Nile. As the shores streamed past,
with the rosy hills and yellow lights above them, winged feluccas
furling sail, or sweeping like birds across the blue, with the roaring
of the swiftness of their motion, he could lie and look--weary with
rapture--watching the figures sprung from the old Palestinian story--a
rugged Peter wrapping his fisher’s cloak about him, or urging his
fellows “I go a-fishing.” But slowly, imperceptibly, the walls of the
world closed in again; the sun beat pitilessly down; the heavens were
brass, the earth iron. Now and again they would open out at the sight
of the sapphire sparkle of the Mediterranean, or the deep, green growth
under blossoming orchards of France. The wind became the life-giving
breath of the spirit, and the soul would “beat” against “mortal bars,”
seeing infinite power, infinite possibility, lying but just beyond the
frail partition; a touch, and he might glide from the mountain side
down over the trees that slept in the noonday of the valley; a hand on
the eyes, and they would see to the truth that lies beneath form and
colour of earthly things; a finger on the ear, and he would hear the
very meaning of the wind and of the trickle of the stream--the gift of
tongues would be an imaginably natural incident.
Yet next day, at some trifling ailment, death and its terrors compass
him about, and the man shakes as with ague under the fear of it and
shame of cowardice. Or he wakes every morning seemingly refreshed,
only to fall by midday into a gulf of blackness and mistrust, sordid,
not tragic, not dignified; and he sits tongue-tied, seeing a sneer
in every smile, marvelling that men do not see the loathsomeness and
terror that lie around them, but walk unconcerned among the dangers
that encompass. Then again life returns in full flood, and the fears
and the terrors are as the fabric of a dream.
A long, strange way, full of inexplicable joys and sorrows, hopes and
fears--a far longer path to travel in the spirit than that by which he
came “out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt,” to the cool airs and
sweet quiet of an old English country house in wooded downs touched
by the freshness of the sea. There in the south, after the first
bound towards health, life had stood still; the parched, sapless land
could yield dry, clear air, sharp bright sunlight, but no refreshment
of health and of spirit, nothing that could be compared to the misty
mornings, and soft dewy evenings of a mild English spring. There the
spring brings no refreshment; March reaps her harvest and the palm
leaves hang dry and yellowish: here all life was stirring after the
winter sleep, and earth was striving in her own finite way to make all
things new. It was long since he had seen an English spring, and the
eye could not be satisfied with gazing.
He first noticed it when, looking on the wintry copses, he saw that a
thin ripple of life had run over the ground; among brown stalks and
withered leaves so slight a flush of green that you could hardly say,
“It is here” or “It is there,” nor surely know the change was worked to
the outer eye or noted by the reanimate perception. Then the fine veil
of skeleton branches against the sky, through, under, beyond which he
could see the blue downs of the coast, thickened, and they warmed in
colour; till the brown of the elm became purple, and the brown of the
beeches red, and the willow golden: then the elm burst into its little
purple rosettes but the others stayed. And now crept out those little
silvery creatures which the children call palms; like little downy
animals, so sweet, so comfortable that the child must half believe they
are alive. Early in April the clumps of crocus in the turf, purple and
yellow, were dying, but the daffodils were beginning to take their
place, strewing the rough grass with flowers of milky gold. A week
later the snake-heads were drawing themselves out of the turf, with
head curved downwards like a swan preening its breast; primroses were
waking in the lanes, the larch was hanging “rosy plumelets,” the silver
leaf buds of the apple were out, and the flower of the peach.
This was cuckoo day, and punctual to the moment they hooted in the
wood below; they had come in good time for the later nests, for the
wagtails had taken their last year’s tenement again in the ivied wall,
and the untidy sparrows were littering lawn and garden.
Again a week, and the cherry buds showed fawn coloured; two days they
stayed so, then a little tree burst into flower. Two days more, and
the orchard looked as if a snow shower had lightly fallen. At last one
windy day white blossoms came drifting down among the scarlet tulips,
and after this a rose-tinge passed over the trees, like a faint sunset
on the snow, and then the glory was gone. But the expanding spirit
could not bewail the glory gone, for warmer weather came with sun
like summer, so that the plum-tree on the wall burst into flower one
morning while one sat under it; a purple iris appeared, the blackthorn
whitened, and in the garden beds the peonies and lilies shot up,
anemones dozed half their radiant life away in royal groups, purple and
scarlet. The remembrance of trembling and helplessness fell from the
man, and he laughed to see the peacock’s grave and measured dance and
the fierce cock chaffinch wooing in his bright spring coat.
So the spring returned, unfolding infinite new delights, sometimes
hurrying, sometimes delaying; the copses clothed themselves in foliage
as light as a birch grove, with all fine gradations of colour from
the grey palms grown old, to the golden oaks beginning, and all life
and all activity responded. Though storms and chill might check the
budding, the renewal of the spring moved in man and nature, as man and
nature shook off the memory of death and winter, warmed and revivified
in the waxing power of the sun.
And the world found voice for its joy, and it was joy to lie awake
in the hour before dawn, while the last fine song of the nightingale
still lingered in the memory, and hear the untutored song echo from
bush to bush; when the thrush and the blackbird waked, and the starling
chattered, and the cock chimed in with the lusty bar of music of his
bugle call, and all in chorus welcomed the day, and ceased.
And one morning, as the man leaned out of his window to drink the
sweet air of growing things, he saw suddenly, that the desire of
spring was satiate. The trees had burst their buds and made a glory of
golden leaves. Life no longer pulsed, stayed, hurried on, but flowed
in the full tide of summer. Summer would burst into glories of beauty
and odour on this side and on that, but the fresh impulse of spring
was over. And the man leaned out and revelled in it. The rough bank
had covered its scars with lush green grass; and leaves, stems, and
branches were hidden. He revelled in the odorous, sun-warmed air, in
the pleasant kindly earth with its beauties, in the sight and sound of
the happy living things, and he looked away towards the hills, but they
were hidden. Then all at once he saw the blindness of content, and he
cried out “Oh my soul, where are the heavenly horizons and the distant
misty hills?”
For while he gazed, the veil had fallen; at first translucent, radiant;
threads fine as gossamer shining with light, so that they seemed but
to illuminate the distance. Then the veil was inwrought with flowers
and as each new beauty came, he said “This is God’s work, and I can
see Him in this; all this symbolizes the light of His countenance, and
I see Him in His world.” And of each human interest and activity he
said, “This is God’s work, for it is the work of His children.” So it
fell fold on fold, thickening imperceptibly, full of sweet odours as it
fell, and the voices of birds; and he did not know that the focus of
his view was contracting, and that he was beginning to look not through
the veil but at it. And he did not see that there was another hand at
work and other threads in the web, grosser, more earthly, and darker
yet; and that as it was woven, warp and woof, other hands threw the
shuttle.
So it fell, closing out the heavenly vision, hiding too the clouds and
darkness round God’s seat; and he found himself gazing on the veil
which men call this world. Then with a great struggle he cried, “In
the time of our wealth, good Lord deliver us.”
III
The year came round again, and this man had found no contentment for
mind or heart. He was such a one as had always believed in the unity
of God and nature, had held the visible universe to be the robe of
His glory and the material to be like clothing which partly hides and
partly reveals the form.
He was a man whom God had chastened a little in the flesh, so that He
might know the Hand that touched him, yet had given him no loathsome
evil thing to be with him, so that he must hate even the body that
served him. God had given him amply of the good things of life and
sufficiently of its sorrows to make him know the first were good. He
had early looked into the empty tomb and seen that since even the body
can in time elude it, it would be beyond reason and belief to dream
that the soul can be prisoned by it. For the soul is not even prisoned
by the body, seeing that it can walk among the stars, thread the secret
places of the earth, or dive into the seas, while the eyes of the body
stare upon a book; or it can fight battles and go through many strange
adventures and visit distant lands while the eyes are closed and the
body is laid upon the bed. Therefore this man had long believed in his
soul, though he had not taught his life and his fancies that though the
material sometimes appears to be greater and stronger and older than
the spiritual, yet that this is merely as the flower seems to one who
looks not below the ground to be more vital than the root. So though he
believed this, the man could not understand what the truth of the world
might be. For he saw that although one may rejoice in its beauties
and delight even in wholly innocent things, believing truly that they
come from God, yet many men thus go astray. And when he listened to
the voices of the dearest of God’s servants he became all the more
perplexed. For one cried “All things are yours, things present as well
as things to come”; but another said “Love not the world.” Again he
heard one say “It is good to be here; let us build three tabernacles”;
and saw him that said it straightway led into the dust and turmoil of
the incredulous crowd. And the sweetest voice said now “Deny yourself,”
and now “Consider the lilies, consider the birds.”
This man was a man who always loved the water. It made a great calm in
his mind to see the sea spread calm before his feet; the storm of the
sea filled him with life, and to die in the sea would, he thought, be
like a child sinking to sleep in its mother’s arms. Clear, translucent
water drew him with a great longing, and he dreamt often that he
should bathe, but as his feet touched the water it ebbed away.
Now near his home there spread, embowered in trees, a great lake; on
one side ran a road neglected and seldom used, from this the lake
ran up curving out of sight. Half-way up towards the curve there
stood a great oak, and beneath this he often bathed. So being in this
perplexity he went out one summer morning, passed through the sleeping
village and by the church, and went down to the lake.
And in the turn of the year again the woods were lightly foliaged, and
the branches shone golden between the leaves; the ground beneath the
oak was carpeted with hyacinths and primroses, here and there a late
anemone starred it.
Here he undressed and plunged from a little height into a pool. His
hands parted the water, which rushed up him as he plunged; then he gave
himself up to the element and it lifted him to the surface. Again he
warred with it, yet moved by means of it, with steady stroke parting
it, and again he turned over and yielded himself up to it, and the
least movement was enough to keep him floating on the surface, and he
rejoiced in the coolness and the purity. So when he had finished he
returned and clothed himself, and moved on through the edge of the
wood, looking at the water, wondering at a transparency that was so
deep and the strength of the fleeting thing, till he came to where a
little wooden bridge spanned the overflow from the lake; and upon the
bridge a boy of about eight years old was sitting.
He was not dressed like a village child; his cap lay beside him with a
little spray of reddening oak stuck into it, and he was staring at the
water.
“Who are you, my son?” said the man as he passed.
“I’m a king,” the child replied; “but I’m an outlaw just now, you see,”
he went on, laying his hand on his cap. “I can’t get into my kingdom.”
“Where is your kingdom?” asked the man.
“Come down here and you’ll see,” he said.
The man sat down beside him on the plank.
“I can’t see much,” he said, “the water is dazzling.”
“Ah, those are the sun’s messengers,” said the boy; “the sun sends
messengers millions and millions of miles to the lake and they
telegraph back to him. But you must look in another place.”
The man slipped into the humour of the child.
“Now I see your kingdom,” he said; “it has greenish forests waving,
strange transparent creatures move silently about.”
“No, that’s not my kingdom,” the child answered, “why, I can get in
there; but it is not like what you think. Those are slippery fishes and
the bottom is all slimy. You must fix your eyes tight and not let them
slip to see my kingdom.”
“Now I see it,” said the other; “it has beautiful blue sky, trees
stretch twigs into it which glisten like gold--one spreads leaves like
jewelled glass with the sun shining through; one stretches budding
twigs made of ruby; it is far, far below the shine and the fishes; and
yet when I look it is quite close to us.”
“Yes, that’s my kingdom!” cried the child.
“But isn’t it just like that behind us?” said the man, to test him.
The boy looked round. “No, that’s out-of-doors,” he said. “My kingdom
is much more happy and safe, and the sky is more shining and the leaves
glitter.”
“But it’s the sun’s kingdom down there even where the shine is,” said
the man.
“Yes, I know it’s his,” said the boy; “if he didn’t send messengers
down there it would be all inky black and dreadful; but they won’t let
his messengers get through, only a few of them, a little yellowish,
greenish light.”
“Is out-of-doors his kingdom too?” then said the man.
“Of course it’s his,” said the child; “if he wasn’t there it would be
dark, and the wind would sob and the trees shake their branches.”
“And what about your kingdom?”
“Oh, he makes that for me,” said the child, “to be all my own.”
The man sat a moment looking at the water and was silent; a starling
chattered on the boughs above; far away came the cry of the cuckoo; at
the right hand of them there was a little rustle as a snake slipped
over dead leaves and through the new living shoots of spring, and
paused.
The man turned to the child.
“But is it real?” he said.
“It’s just as real as the sun and the water and out-of-doors,” said the
boy steadily.
“But you said some day you would get in,” answered the man, tempting
him.
The boy turned and looked at him, and his eyes were like a great stream
with the sun shining through. “And that’s just as real as me,” he said.
The man snapped the twig he held in his hand, the snake silently
slipped through the brake and was gone, and the man stood up, yet
paused a moment looking down at the shining world, then he got up.
“Goodbye,” he said, “I must go and look for my kingdom. I had one once
but I lost it.”
“Shall you be able to get in?” asked the boy.
“Not just yet, perhaps,” he said, “but I can look at it till I find
the way in.”
So he went back through the wood, remembering that it was written,
“Out of the mouth of babes thou hast perfected praise.”
The Gresham Press,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED,
WOKING AND LONDON.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Some of the descriptions which follow include things seen on our
later visits.
[2] In later years we found a garden open to the public, and even trees
in it.
[3] More than one such outer chapel of a tomb we made to serve as a
place for Christian worship.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or alternate spelling which may have been in use at the time
of publication has been retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Court of the King, by Margaret Benson