FRIENDSHIP
See, God is everywhere,
Where, then, is care?
There is no night in Him,
Then how can we grow dim?
There is no room for pain or fear
Since God is Love, and Love is here.
The full cup lowered down into the sea,
Is full continually,
How can it lose one drop when all around
The endless floods abound?
So we in Him no part of Life can lose,
For all is ours to use.
David found himself enjoying his holiday a good deal. Blue skies and
shining air, clear cold of the snows and radiant warmth of the spring
sun, sweet sleep by night and pleasant companionship by day—all these
were his portion. His own content surprised him. He had been so long in
the dark places that he could scarcely believe that the shadow was gone,
and the day clear again. He had been prepared to struggle manfully
against the feeling for Mary which had haunted and tormented him for so
long. To his surprise, he found that this feeling fell into line with
the other symptoms of his illness. He shrank from thinking of it, as he
shrank from thinking of his craving for drink, his sleepless nights, and
his dread of madness. It was all a part of the same bad dream—a shadow
among shadows, in a world of gloom from which he had escaped.
Elizabeth was a very good companion. It was too early to climb, but they
took long walks, shared picnic meals, and talked or were silent just as
the spirit moved them. It was the old boy and girl companionship come
back, and it was a very restful thing. One day, when they had been
married about a fortnight, David said suddenly:
“How did you do it, Elizabeth?”
They were sitting on a grassy slope, looking over a wide valley where
blue mists lay. A little wind was blowing, and the upper air was clear.
The grass on which they sat was short. It was full of innumerable small
white and purple anemones. Elizabeth was sitting on the grass, watching
the flowers, and touching first one and then another with the tips of
her fingers.
“All these little white ones have a violet stain at the back of each
petal,” was the last thing that she had said, but when David spoke she
looked up, a little startled.
He was lying full length on a narrow ledge just above her, with his cap
over his eyes to shield them from the sun, which was very bright.
“How did you do it, Elizabeth?” said David Blake.
Elizabeth hesitated. She could not see his face.
“What do you mean?”
“How did you do it? Was it hypnotism?”
“Oh, no—” There was real horror in her voice.
“It must have been.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“Do you remember how interested we used to be in hypnotism, David?”
“Yes, that’s partly what made me think of it.”
“We read everything we could lay hands on—all the books on psychic
phenomena—Charcot’s experiments—everything. And do you remember the
conclusion we came to?”
“What was it?”
“I don’t think you’ve forgotten. I can remember you stamping up and down
my little room and saying, ‘It’s a _damnable_ thing, Elizabeth, a
perfectly damnable thing. There’s _no_ end, absolutely none to the
extent to which it undermines everything—I believe it is a much more
real devil than any that the theologies produce.’ That’s what you said
nine years ago, David, and I agreed with you. We used quite a lot of
strong language between us, and I don’t feel called upon to retract any
of it. Hypnotism _is_ a damnable thing.”
David pushed the cap back from his eyes as Elizabeth spoke, and raised
himself on his elbow, so that he could see her face.
“There are degrees,” he said, “and it’s very hard to define. How would
you define it?”
“It’s not easy. ‘The unlawful influence of one mind over another’?”
“That’s begging the question. At what point does it become
unlawful?—that’s the crux.”
“I suppose at the point when force of will overbears
sense—reason—conscience. You may persuade a man to lend you money, but
you mayn’t pick his pocket or hypnotise him.”
David laughed.
“How practical!”
Then very suddenly:
“So it wasn’t hypnotism. Are you _sure_?”
“Yes, quite sure.”
“But can you be sure? There’s such a thing as the unconscious exercise
of will power.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“There is nothing in the least unconscious in what I do. I know very
well what I am about, and I know enough about hypnotism to know that it
is not that. I don’t use my will at all.”
“What do you do? How is it done?” His tone was interested.
“I think,” said Elizabeth slowly, “that it is done by _realising_, by
getting into touch with Reality. Things like sleeplessness, pain, and
strain aren’t right—they aren’t normal. They are like bad dreams. If one
wakes—if one sees the reality—the dream is gone.”
She spoke as if she were struggling to find words for some idea which
filled her mind, but was hard to put into a communicable shape.
“It is life on the Fourth Dimension,” she said at last.
“Yes,” said David, “go on.” There was a slightly quizzical look in his
eyes, but he was interested. “What do you mean by the Fourth Dimension?”
“We used to talk of that too, and lately I have thought about it a lot.”
“Yes?”
“It is so hard to put into words. Fourth Dimensional things won’t get
into Third Dimensional words. One has to try and try, and then a little
scrap of the meaning comes through. That is why there are so many
creeds, so many sects. They are all an attempt to express—and one can’t
really express the thing. I can’t say it, I can only feel it. It is
limitless, and words are limited. There are no bounds or barriers. Take
Thought, for instance—that is Fourth Dimensional—and Love. Religion is a
purely Fourth Dimensional thing, and we all guess and translate as best
we may. In all religions that have life, apprehension rises above the
creed and reaches out to the Real—the untranslatable.”
“Yes, that’s true; but go on—define the Fourth Dimension.”
“I can see it, you know. It’s another plane. It is the plane which
permeates and inter-penetrates all other planes—universal, eternal,
unchanging. It’s like the Fire of God—searching all things. It is the
plane of Reality. Nothing is real which is not universal and unchanging
and eternal. If one can realise that plane, one is amongst the
realities, and all that is unreal goes out. ‘There is no life but the
Life of God, no consciousness but the Divine Consciousness.’ I think
that is the best definition of all: ‘the Divine Consciousness.’”
He did not know that she was quoting, and he did not answer her or speak
at all for some time. But at last he said:
“So I slept, because you saw me in the Divine Consciousness; is that
it?”
“Something like that.”
“You didn’t will that I should sleep?”
“Oh, no.”
“Are you doing it still?”
“Yes.”
“Every night?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth again.
David sat up. The mists in the valley beneath were golden, for the sun
had dropped. As he looked, the gold turned grey, and the shadow of
darkness to come rose out of the valley’s depths, though the hill-slope
on which they sat was warm and sunny yet. David turned and saw that
Elizabeth was watching him.
“I want you to stop whatever it is you do,” he said abruptly.
“Very well.”
“I’m not as ungrateful as that sounds—” He broke off, and Elizabeth said
quickly:
“Oh, no.”
“You don’t think it?”
“Why should I? You are well again. You don’t need my help any more.”
A shadow like the shadow of evening came over her as she spoke, but her
smile betrayed nothing.
They walked back to the hotel in silence.
David had wondered if he would sleep. He slept all night, the sweet
sound sleep of health and a mind unburdened.
It was Elizabeth who did not sleep. She had walked with him through the
valley of the shadow and he had come out of it a whole man again. Was
she to cling to the shadow, because in the shadow David had clung to
her? It came to that. She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the
pain of it. They were come out into the light, and in the light he had
no need of her. But this was not full daylight in which they walked—it
was only the first chill grey of the dawn, and there is always a need of
Love. Love needs must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for Love
is of the realities—a thing immutable and all-pervading. No man can shut
out Love.