Donnez vos yeux, donnez vos mains,
Donnez vos mains surnaturelles;
Pour me conduire aux lendemains
Donnez vos yeux, donnez vos mains,
Vos mains comme deux roses frêles.
And thus, as the region where he met and held communion with the freed
child seemed to draw deeper and deeper into his interior being, the
reality and value of the experience increased.
That there was some kind of definite external link, however, was equally
true; for the cats, as well as certain other of the animals, most
certainly were aware sometimes of her presence. They showed it in many
and curious ways. But it was distinctly a shock to Paul to learn one day
from his sister that queer stories were afoot concerning himself; that
some of the simple country folk declared they had seen ‘Mr Rivers
walking with a young lady that was jest like Miss Nixie, only taller,’
who disappeared, however, the moment the observer approached. And the
way the household felt her presence was, perhaps, not less remarkable,
for more than one of the servants gave notice because the house had
become ‘haunted,’ and there had been seen a ‘smallish white figure, all
shiny and dancing,’ in his bedroom, or going down the corridor towards
his study.
Perhaps the glamour of his vivid creative thought had cast its effect
upon these untrained imaginations, so that his vision was temporarily
communicated to them too. Or, perhaps, they had actually seen what they
described. But, whatever the explanation may be, the effect upon himself
was to increase, if that were possible, the reality of the whole
occurrence....
And when the spring came round again with its charged memories of
perfume, and sight, and the singing of its happy winds; when the
tree-spirits returned to their garden haunts, all flaming with the
beauty of new dresses gathered over-seas; when the silver birch tree
combed out her glittering hair to the sun and shook her leaves in the
very face of that old pine tree—then Paul felt in himself, too, the
rejuvenation that was going forward in all the world around him. He
tasted in his heart all the regenerative forces that were bursting into
form and energy with the spring, and knew that the pain and desolation
he had felt temporarily in the winter were only spiritual growing-pains
and the passing distress of a soul forging its way outwards through
development to the best possible Expression it could achieve.
For Nixie came back, too, gay and glorious like the rest of the
world—sometimes dressed in blossoms of lilac or laburnum, sometimes with
skirts of daisies and feet resting upon the Little Winds, sometimes with
the soft hood of darkness over her head, the cloak of night about her
shoulders, the stars caught all shivering in her hair, and dusk in the
deeps of her eyes....
His life became ‘inner’ in the best sense—a Life within a Life; not
given over to useless dreaming, but ever drawing from the inner one the
sustenance that provided the driving force for the outer one: the mystic
as man of action!
The Wind of Inspiration blew for him now always, and steadily; but it
was no longer the little wind that stirred the measure of his personal
emotion into stammering verse, but the big, eternal wind that ‘blew the
stars to flame,’ and at the same time impelled him irresistibly along
the path of High A’venture to the loss of Self in work for others....
‘Then why is it we are in the body—and spend so much time there?’ he
asked in one of those intimate and mysterious conversations he held with
the child to the very end of his life. ‘Why need the soul descend to
such clumsy confinings?’
For their talk was very close now about ‘real things,’ and neither found
any difficulty in the words of question or answer.
‘To get experience that can only be got through the pains of
limitation,’ the answer sang within him, as he lay there upon the lawn
beneath the cedars, absorbing the spring beauty. ‘Everything is doing
the same thing everywhere—from Smoke, Mrs. Tompkyns and Madmerzelle,
right up to you, me, Daddy, and the waifs! They all have a bit of
Reality in them working upwards to God. Even stones and plants and trees
are learning experiences they could learn only in those particular
forms—’
‘I know it! Of course, I know it!’ Paul interrupted, with a rush of joy
in his heart he could not restrain; ‘but go on and tell me more, for I
love to hear your little voice say it all.’
‘It’s only, perhaps, that the stones are learning patience and
endurance; the flowers sweetness; the trees strength and comfort; and
the rivers joy. Later they change about, so that in the end each ‘Bit of
Reality’ has gathered all possible experiences in nature before it
passes on into men and women.
‘Think, Uncle Paul, of the joy of a stone, who after centuries of
patience and endurance, cramped and pressed down, knows suddenly the
freedom of wind and sea! Of the restlessness of flame that, after ages
of leaping unsatisfied to the sky, learns the repose of a tree, moved
only by the outside forces of wind and rain! And think of the delight of
all these when they pass still further upwards and reach the stage of
consciousness in animals and men—and in time enter the region of
development where I—where you and I, and all we knew and loved, continue
together, ever climbing, fighting, learning——’
It was curious. Afterwards he could never remember the way she ended the
sentence. For the life of him he could not write it down. Definite
recollection failed him, together with the loss of the actual words.
Only the general sense remained in such a way as to open to his inner
eye a huge vista of spiritual endeavour and advance that left him
breathless and dizzy when he contemplated it, but at the same time
charged most splendidly with courage and with hope.
‘Then the pains of limitation,’ he remembered asking, ‘the anguish of
impossible yearnings that vainly seek expression—these are symptoms of
growth that in the end may produce something higher and nobler?’
‘Must!’ he heard the answer amid a burst of happy laughter, as though
from where she stood it were possible to look back upon earthly pangs
and see them in the terms of joy; ‘just like any other suffering! Like
the stress of heat and pressure that turns common clay into gems——’
He interrupted her swiftly, high hopes crowding through his spirit like
the rush of an army.
‘Then the life in us all—the “Bits of Reality” in you and me—have passed
through all possible forms in their huge upward journey to reach our
present stage——?’ He stammered amid a multitude of golden memories, half
captured.
‘Of course, Uncle Paul, of course!’ he caught deep, deep within him the
silvery faint reply. ‘And your love and sympathy with trees, winds,
hills, with all Nature, even with animals’—again her laughter ran out to
him like a song—‘is because you passed long ago through them all, and
_half remember_. You still _feel with_ them, and your imagination for
ever strives to reconstruct the various beauty known in each stage. You
remember in the depths of you the longings of every particular
degree—even of the time when your soul was less advanced, and groping
upwards as your London waifs grope even now. This is why your sympathy
with them, too, is deep and true. You _half remember_.’
‘And Death,’ he whispered, trembling with the joy of infinite spiritual
desire.
The answer sank down into him with the Little Wind that stirred the
cedars overhead, or else rose singing up from the uttermost depths of
his listening heart—to the end of his days he never could tell which.
‘What you call Death is only slipping through the Crack to a great deal
more memory, and a great deal more power of seeing and telling—towards
the greatest Expression that ever can be known. It is, I promise you
faithfully, Uncle Paul, nothing but a very-wonderfulindeed Aventure,
after all!’
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.