IX

Now before I go on to tell the tale of what happened to us in the valley

there were two very curious things that I observed or began to observe.

The first was that I could not really see into the girl's thought. I

became aware that though I could see into the thought of Amroth as

easily and directly as one can look into a clear sea-pool, with all its

rounded pebbles and its swaying fringes of seaweed, there was in the

girl's mind a centre of thought to which I was not admitted, a fortress

of personality into which I could not force my way. More than that. When

she mistrusted or suspected me, there came a kind of cloud out from the

central thought, as if a turbid stream were poured into the sea-pool,

which obscured her thoughts from me, though when she came to know me

and to trust me, as she did later, the cloud was gradually withdrawn;

and I perceived that there must be a perfect sacrifice of will, an

intention that the mind should lie open and unashamed before the thought

of one's friend and companion, before the vision can be complete. With

Amroth I desired to conceal nothing, and he had no concealment from me.

But with the girl it was different. There was something in her heart

that she hid from me, and by no effort could I penetrate it; and I saw

then that there is something at the centre of the soul which is our very

own, and into which God Himself cannot even look, unless we desire that

He should look; and even if we desire that He should look into our

souls, if there is any timidity or shame or shrinking about us, we

cannot open our souls to Him. I must speak about this later, when the

great and wonderful day came to me, when I beheld God and was beheld by

Him. But now, though when the girl trusted me I could see much of her

thought, the inmost cell of it was still hidden from me.

And then, too, I perceived another strange thing; that the landscape in

which we walked was very plain to me, but that she did not see the same

things that I saw. With me, the landscape was such as I had loved most

in my last experience of life; it was a land to me like the English

hill-country which I loved the best; little fields of pasture mostly,

with hedgerow ashes and sycamores, and here and there a clear stream of

water running by the wood-ends. There were buildings, too, low

white-walled farms, roughly slated, much-weathered, with evidences of

homely life, byre and barn and granary, all about them. These sloping

fields ran up into high moorlands and little grey crags, with the trees

and thickets growing in the rock fronts. I could not think that people

lived in these houses and practised agriculture, though I saw with

surprise and pleasure that there were animals about, horses and sheep

grazing, and dogs that frisked in and out. I had always believed and

hoped that animals had their share in the inheritance of light, and now

I thought that this was a proof that it was indeed so, though I could

not be sure of it, because I realised that it might be but the thoughts

of my mind taking shape, for, as I say, I was gradually aware that the

girl did not see what I saw. To her it was a different scene, of some

southern country, because she seemed to see vineyards, and high-walled

lanes, hill-crests crowded with houses and crowned with churches, such

as one sees at a distance in the Campagna, where the plain breaks into

chestnut-clad hills. But this difference of sight did not make me feel

that the scene was in any degree unreal; it was the idea of the

landscape which we loved, its pretty associations and familiar features,

and the mind did the rest, translating it all into a vision of scenes

which had given us joy on earth, just as we do in dreams when we are in

the body, when the sleeping mind creates sights which give us pleasure,

and yet we have no knowledge that we are ourselves creating them. So we

walked together, until I perceived that we were drawing near to the town

which we had discerned.

And now we became aware of people going to and fro. Sometimes they

stopped and looked upon us with smiles, and even greetings; and

sometimes they went past absorbed in thought.

Houses appeared, both small wayside abodes and larger mansions with

sheltered gardens. What it all meant I hardly knew; but just as we have

perfectly decided tastes on earth as to what sort of a house we like and

why we like it, whether we prefer high, bright rooms, or rooms low and

with subdued light, so in that other country the mind creates what it

desires.

Presently the houses grew thicker, and soon we were in a street--the

town to my eyes was like the little towns one sees in the Cotswold

country, of a beautiful golden stone, with deep plinths and cornices,

with older and simpler buildings interspersed. My companion became

strangely excited, glancing this way and that. And presently, as if we

were certainly expected, there came up to us a kindly and grave person,

who welcomed us formally to the place, and said a few courteous words

about his pleasure that we should have chosen to visit it.

I do not know how it was, but I did not wholly trust our host. His mind

was hidden from me; and indeed I began to have a sense, not of evil,

indeed, or of oppression, but a feeling that it was not the place

appointed for me, but only where my business was to lie for a season. A

group of people came up to us and welcomed my companion with great

cheerfulness, and she was soon absorbed in talk.

X

Now before I come to tell this next part of my story, there are several

things which seem in want of explanation. I speak of people as looking

old and young, and of there being relations between them such as

fatherly and motherly, son-like and lover-like. It bewildered me at

first, but I came to guess at the truth. It would seem that in the

further world spirits do preserve for a long time the characteristics of

the age at which they last left the earth; but I saw no very young

children anywhere at first, though I came afterwards to know what befell

them. It seemed to me that, in the first place I visited, the only

spirits I saw were of those who had been able to make a deliberate

choice of how they would live in the world and which kind of desires

they would serve; it is very hard to say when this choice takes place

in the world below, but I came to believe that, early or late, there

does come a time when there is an opening out of two paths before each

human soul, and when it realises that a choice must be made. Sometimes

this is made early in life; but sometimes a soul drifts on, guileless in

a sense, though its life may be evil and purposeless, not looking

backwards or forwards, but simply acting as its nature bids it act. What

it is that decides the awakening of the will I hardly know; it is all a

secret growth, I think; but the older that the spirit is, in the sense

of spiritual experience, the earlier in mortal life that choice is made;

and this is only another proof of one of the things which Amroth showed

me, that it is, after all, imagination which really makes the difference

between souls, and not intellect or shrewdness or energy; all the real

things of life--sympathy, the power of entering into fine relations,

however simple they may be, with others, loyalty, patience, devotion,

goodness--seem to grow out of this power of imagination; and the reason

why the souls of whom I am going to speak were so content to dwell where

they were, was simply that they had no imagination beyond, but dwelt

happily among the delights which upon earth are represented by sound and

colour and scent and comeliness and comfort. This was a perpetual

surprise to me, because I saw in these fine creatures such a faculty of

delicate perception, that I could not help believing again and again

that their emotions were as deep and varied too; but I found little by

little, that they were all bent, not on loving, and therefore on giving

themselves away to what they loved, but in gathering in perceptions and

sensations, and finding their delight in them; and I realised that what

lies at the root of the artistic nature is its deep and vital

indifference to anything except what can directly give it delight, and

that these souls, for all their amazing subtlety and discrimination, had

very little hold on life at all, except on its outer details and

superficial harmonies; and that they were all very young in experience,

and like shallow waters, easily troubled and easily appeased; and that

therefore they were being dealt with like children, and allowed full

scope for all their little sensitive fancies, until the time should come

for them to go further yet. Of course they were one degree older than

the people who in the world had been really immersed in what may be

called solid interests and serious pursuits--science, politics,

organisation, warfare, commerce--all these spirits were very youthful

indeed, and they were, I suppose, in some very childish nursery of God.

But what first bewildered me was the finding of the earthly proportions

of things so strangely reversed, the serious matters of life so utterly

set aside, and so much made of the things which many people take no sort

of trouble about, as companionships and affections, which are so often

turned into a matter of mere propinquity and circumstance. But of this

I shall have to speak later in its place.

Now it is difficult to describe the time I spent in the land of delight,

because it was all so unlike the life of the world, and yet was so

strangely like it. There was work going on there, I found, but the

nature of it I could not discern, because that was kept hidden from me.

Men and women excused themselves from our company, saying they must

return to their work; but most of the time was spent in leisurely

converse about things which I confess from the first did not interest

me. There was much wit and laughter, and there were constant games and

assemblies and amusements. There were feasts of delicious things, music,

dramas. There were books read and discussed; it was just like a very

cultivated and civilised society. But what struck me about the people

there was that it was all very restless and highly-strung, a perpetual

tasting of pleasures, which somehow never pleased. There were two people

there who interested me most. One was a very handsome and courteous

man, who seemed to desire my company, and spoke more freely than the

rest; the other a young man, who was very much occupied with the girl,

my companion, and made a great friendship with her. The elder of the

two, for I must give them names, shall be called Charmides, which seems

to correspond with his stately charm, and the younger may be known as

Lucius.

I sat one day with Charmides, listening to a great concert of stringed

and wind instruments, in a portico which gave on a large sheltered

garden. He was much absorbed in the music, which was now of a brisk and

measured beauty, and now of a sweet seriousness which had a very

luxurious effect upon my mind. "It is wonderful to me," said Charmides,

as the last movement drew to a close of liquid melody, "that these

sounds should pass into the heart like wine, heightening and uplifting

the thought--there is nothing so beautiful as the discrimination of

mood with which it affects one, weighing one delicate phrase against

another, and finding all so perfect."

"Yes," I said, "I can understand that; but I must confess that there

seems to me something wanting in the melodies of this place. The music

which I loved in the old days was the music which spoke to the soul of

something further yet and unattainable; but here the music seems to have

attained its end, and to have fulfilled its own desire."

"Yes," said Charmides, "I know that you feel that; your mind is very

clear to me, up to a certain point; and I have sometimes wondered why

you spend your time here, because you are not one of us, as your friend

Cynthia is."

I glanced, as he spoke, to where Cynthia sat on a great carved settle

among cushions, side by side with Lucius, whispering to him with a

smile.

"No," I said, "I do not think I have found my place yet, but I am here,

I think, for a purpose, and I do not know what that purpose is."

"Well," he said, "I have sometimes wondered myself. I feel that you may

have something to tell me, some message for me. I thought that when I

first saw you; but I cannot quite perceive what is in your mind, and I

see that you do not wholly know what is in mine. I have been here for a

long time, and I have a sense that I do not get on, do not move; and yet

I have lived in extreme joy and contentment, except that I dread to

return to life, as I know I must return. I have lived often, and always

in joy--but in life there are constantly things to endure, little things

which just ruffle the serenity of soul which I desire, and which I may

fairly say I here enjoy. I have loved beauty, and not intemperately; and

there have been other people--men and women--whom I have loved, in a

sense; but the love of them has always seemed a sort of interruption to

the life I desired, something disordered and strained, which hurt me,

and kept me away from the peace I desired--from the fine weighing of

sounds and colours, and the pleasure of beautiful forms and lines; and I

dread to return to life, because one cannot avoid love and sorrow, and

mean troubles, which waste the spirit in vain."

"Yes," I said, "I can understand what you feel very well, because I too

have known what it is to desire to live in peace and beauty, not to be

disturbed or fretted; but the reason, I think, why it is dangerous, is

not because life becomes too _easy_. That is not the danger at all--life

is never easy, whatever it is! But the danger is that it grows too

solemn! One is apt to become like a priest, always celebrating holy

mysteries, always in a vision, with no time for laughter, and disputing,

and quarrelling, and being silly and playing. It is the poor body again

that is amiss. It is like the camel, poor thing; it groans and weeps,

but it goes on. One cannot live wholly in a vision; and life does not

become more simple so, but more complicated, for one's time and energy

are spent in avoiding the sordid and the tiresome things which one

cannot and must not avoid. I remember, in an illness which I had, when I

was depressed and fanciful, a homely old doctor said to me, 'Don't be

too careful of yourself: don't think you can't bear this and that--go

out to dinner--eat and drink rather too much!' It seemed to be coarse

advice, but it was wise."

"Yes," said Charmides, "it was wise; but it is difficult to feel it so

at the time. I wonder! I think perhaps I have made the mistake of being

too fastidious. But it seemed so fine a goal that one had in sight, to

chasten and temper all one's thoughts to what was beautiful--to judge

and distinguish, to choose the right tones and harmonies, to be always

rejecting and refining. It had its sorrows, of course. How often in the

old days one came in contact with some gracious and beautiful

personality, and flung oneself into close relations; and then one began

to see this and that flaw. There were lapses in tact, petulances,

littlenesses; one's friend did not rightly use his beautiful mind; he

was jealous, suspicious, trivial, petty; it ended in disillusionment.

Instead of taking him as a passenger on one's vessel, and determining to

live at peace, to overlook, to accommodate, one began to watch for an

opportunity of putting him down courteously at some stopping-place; and

instead of being grateful for his friendship, one was vexed with him for

disappointing one. We must speak more of these things. I seem to feel

the want of something commoner and broader in my thoughts; but in this

place it is hard to change."

"Will you forgive me then," I said, "if I ask you plainly what this

place is? It seems very strange to me, and yet I think I have been here

before."

Charmides looked at me with a smile. "It has been called," he said, "by

many ugly names, and men have been unreasonably afraid of it. It is the

place of satisfied desire, and, as you see, it is a comfortable place

enough. The theologians in their coarse way call it Hell, though that is

a word which is forbidden here; it is indeed a sort of treason to use

the word, because of its unfortunate association--and you can see with

your own eyes that I have done wrong even to speak of it."

I looked round, and saw indeed that a visible tremor had fallen on the

groups about us; it was as though a cold cloud, full of hail and

darkness, had floated over a sunny sky. People were hurrying out of the

garden, and some were regarding us askance and with frowns of

disapproval. In a moment or two we were left alone.

"I have been indiscreet," said Charmides, "but I feel somehow in a

rebellious mood; and indeed it has long seemed absurd to me that you

should be unaware of the fact, and so obviously guileless! But I will

speak no more of this to-day. People come and go here very strangely,

and I have sometimes wondered if it would not soon be time for me to go;

but it would be idle to pretend that I have not been happy here."