I call you by this name as I have always called you through many cycles
of time,--it should sound upon your ears as familiarly as a note of
music struck in response to another similar note in far distance. You
are not satisfied with the proofs given you by your own inner
consciousness, which testify to the unalterable fact that you and I
are, and must be, as one,--that we have played with fate against each
other, and sometimes striven to escape from each other, all in
vain;--it is not enough for you to know (as you do know) that the
moment our eyes met our spirits rushed together in a sudden ecstasy
which, had we dared to yield to it, would have outleaped convention and
made of us no more than two flames in one fire! If you are honest with
yourself as I am honest with myself, you will admit that this is
so,--that the emotion which overwhelmed us was reasonless, formless and
wholly beyond all analysis, yet more insistent than any other force
having claim on our lives. But it is not sufficient for you to realise
this,--or to trace through every step of the journey you have made, the
gradual leading of your soul to mine,--from that last night you passed
in your own home, when every fibre of your being grew warm with the
prescience of coming joy, to this present moment, even through dreams
of infinite benediction in which I shared--no!--it is not sufficient
for you!--you must 'know'--you must learn--you must probe into deeper
mysteries, and study and suffer to the last! Well, if it must be so, it
must,--and I shall rely on the eternal fitness of things to save you
from your own possible rashness and bring you back to me,--for without
you now I can do nothing more. I have done much--and much remains to be
done--but if I am to attain, you must crown the attainment--if my
ambition is to find completion, you alone can be its completeness. If
you have the strength and the courage to face the ordeal through which
Aselzion sends those who seek to follow his teaching, you will indeed
have justified your claim to be considered higher than merest
woman,--though you have risen above that level already. The lives of
women generally, and of men too, are so small and sordid and
self-centred, thanks to their obstinate refusal to see anything better
or wider than their own immediate outlook, that it is hardly worth
while considering them in the light of that deeper knowledge which
teaches of the REAL life behind the seeming one. In the ordinary way of
existence men and women meet and mate with very little more
intelligence or thought about it than the lower animals; and the
results of such meeting and mating are seen in the degenerate and dying
nations of to-day. Moreover, they are content to be born for no other
visible reason than to die--and no matter how often they may be told
there is no such thing as death, they receive the assertion with as
much indignant incredulity as the priesthood of Rome received Galileo's
assurance that the earth moves round the sun. But we--you and I--who
know that life, being ALL Life, CANNOT die,--ought to be wiser in our
present space of time than to doubt each other's infinite capability
for love and the perfect world of beauty which love creates. _I_ do not
doubt--my doubting days are past, and the whips of sorrow have lashed
me into shape as well as into strength, but YOU hesitate,--because you
have been rendered weak by much misunderstanding. However, it has
partially comforted me to place the position fully before you, and
having done this I feel that you must be free to go your own way. I do
not say 'I love you!'--such a phrase from me would be merest folly,
knowing that you must be mine, whether now or at the end of many more
centuries. Your soul is deathless as mine is--it is eternally young, as
mine is,--and the force that gives us life and love is divine and
indestructible, so that for us there can be no end to the happiness
which is ours to claim when we will. For the rest I leave you to
decide--you will go to the House of Aselzion and perhaps you will
remain there some time,--at any rate when you depart from thence you
will have learned much, and you will know what is best for yourself and
for me.