Malcolm Smith and Drew had their talk, walking by the river in the
still, November dusk. Drew said: "I was glad to be on Rock Mountain, and
after a few months, if you will have me, I am going there again. But I
am glad that I came here. I am growing to see that it is not here nor
there, camp on mountain or Sweet Rocket, that a man goes to find
himself. But yet there are helpers.... There's a principle of induction,
don't you think, sir? Those who find start a wave of finding. The wave
caught them, too. There isn't any first or last."
Turning, they saw fire gleaming through the window. "He says that we
(and when he says that he means the whole of us. When he says 'I' it is
the other word for 'we.' It is the Whole of the many) are growing fast
to-day. Sometimes he says Evolving Life, sometimes the Principle of
Integration, or the Great Synthesis. He may say Humanity Awake, or Going
Home, or Realizing Deity, or Liberation in God, or Becoming Real, or
Fulfilling Want, or Recollection, or Union, or the Eternal, Including
_SELF_, or Love at Last. He seems to think that almost any phrase will
answer if you know the thing."
Zinia's bell rang from the porch behind them. They went in to the
pleasant supper table, set with wholesome, delicate bread, and fragrant
coffee, cottage cheese, and baked apples and cream. The table talk was
merry this evening, after the dreamy day. Supper over, all walked out to
see the night, and found it clearing, with river banks of clouds and
stars between like lit craft sailing, sailing. The air breathed
exquisitely mild, warm to-night as early October. "Let us sit by the
river and watch awhile." They took capes and coats and went down to
where, before the cedars, was placed a long bench. Sitting here, though
no entire constellation was visible, yet they pieced out the figures.
They sat in silence, watching the ships of the universe. At last said
the visitor: "I have been thinking a good deal about you down here by
this river, and about Drew, and of two or three things Mr. Curtin said
when he was at camp. So I came down. I have been thinking a good deal.
Look! there is Pleiades, a magic island in a sea. I have had my inklings
of the way currents arise in this world. Let's grant that it is a
universe of thought and will and feeling, and that, from ignoring as
much as we could that fact, and then from wondering about it, and then
from in some wise earning it, we begin to be it--"
"Just," said Linden. "Well?"
The other continued, "Once, when I was recovering from an illness, I
found or was found by--and I don't suppose the expressions matter--"
"No. They are distinctions without a difference."
"Once, then, I walked into a state of consciousness that transcended the
level that I had thought was the true level. I was there for it might be
five seconds of our time. But though again in mass we parted, there
remained an influence--like one of those rivers up there. The world has
never since been just the old world. But the main experience did not
repeat itself, though there have been times when I have met the shadows
of it. Until the other night. But I will come to that presently. Though
it was not repeated I have known ever since that there is a
consciousness as much above our usual one as the latter is above the
ape's. A consciousness that it is profoundly desirable to reach. Before
that moment I was like almost any European of say 1491. During it--for
that one minute--I was in America. After it, though I returned to
Europe, I could say, there is America!"
"Yes. Just."
"But I had fallen out of America and I could never get quite back,
though I often tried. And then the other night--"
He broke off, and seemed to ponder the sky. "I rode over from Rock
Mountain because the other night I had, not that first experience again,
but one that was again in America--New America. From what I have heard I
felt certain that this place knows these experiences. I wanted to
compare, and be confirmed. So I rode over." He was speaking to Linden.
"I had meant to ask to talk with you alone, but I see that there is
nothing here that jars or makes it difficult. It's a good place, this
bench, with the river sounding, and the clouds and the stars."
"There is just ourself here."
"I was coming down from the top of Rock. I had had a still twenty
minutes there, watching the sunset. I had thought of nothing in
particular, only gathered rest. I was halfway down when this torrent
rose and overtook me. I stood still. I remember a pine tree, and beyond
that a great wash of sky. But I--I was in the torrent that now seemed
Ocean, and now seemed Air, and now was Fire. The combination called
Malcolm Smith was gone into that, like rain into sea or a candle flame
into sun. And yet--and that was the miracle of it--there was an I, only
it was oceanic, only it was the sun! It held in a sheaf, it sucked out
pith and marrow of all the small 'me's' in creation, and soared and
rang, an All-Person. But what are words? If I could give you that
sense--"
"Perhaps you do. As long ago we developed gesture in order faintly to
understand and be at one, and then developed speech, so now the Will
within is propelling and the Will within is receiving these mightier
waves. I feel what you would give. Go on."
"If I could find the words! I passed into a subtle consciousness that
went everywhere, and all our old time became space to it. There was
motion, as of all the winds of the world brought into one current--only
nor air nor fire is swift enough, vast enough! And yet you would say
'Quietude.' ... All the movements of our world penetrated, understood,
furthered--all the honey fields, all the bees, all the hives--and
Valhalla and Olympus and Paradise, where the honey is eaten! And it is
all a figure, but what will you have! I can but stammer. I have seen
home."
He rose, and walked up and down beneath the cedars. "I talk about it so
calmly, and yet all that I ever believed or hoped, all that I ever
thought or felt or did, is babyhood to that! I am patient, and that
astonishes me; I who am back at Malcolm Smith!"
"You are not wholly back. The rising pendulum swings, but now a great
part of you is above the old, lower range. And at the last not
anticipation, but reality, not light of home, but home!"
The river sounded, the stars shone in the upper rivers with the cloud
banks. The clouds made rivers, but, the clouds dissolved, there were no
more rivers, but Ocean, but Space, but the Eternal Fire!
"It is all I have to tell," said Smith. "It sank with long
reverberations, and there was the pine tree, and the camp below, and
Malcolm Smith."
They sat in silence. At last, said Linden: "America is a term of
vastness. They who adventured there and arrived found all manner of
experience, but all in America. They sailed in many crafts--and yet in
the end all were as one ship, all being for America. They landed north
or south, in varying climes; they stayed by the sea or went toward the
mountains, but all in America. They met with great variety in adventure,
the land being so vast and so rich in might, but all was American
adventure.... So it is, I hold, with the New America, the New World now
lighting the horizon. It resounds and flames thus to this one, and thus
to the other one. But it resounds and flames. The Great Symphony takes
in all the music. Feel it as you can, know it as you can! In proportion
as you draw the breath of the All, comparisons become odious. You have
access as I have access. Enter by the door of your inner nature!"
"A new man is born?"
"Yes. Everywhere. Including and transcending men. Men fading into Man,
men left behind. Man moving toward his full Consciousness. What in
prophecy we have called Christ."
They watched the clouds and the stars, and they saw, each of them, a
new Country that was fair and strong and keen and glowing....
At last they rose and went back to the house, and by the fire listened
to the violin.