Presently I wandered off alone, and went out of the city with a sudden
impulse. I thought I would go in the opposite direction to that by which
I had entered it. I could see the great hills down which Cynthia and I
had made our way in the dawn; but I had never gone in the further
direction, where there stretched what seemed to be a great forest. The
whole place lay bathed in a calm light, all unutterably beautiful. I
wandered long by streams and wood-ends, every corner that I turned
revealing new prospects of delight. I came at last to the edge of the
forest, the mouths of little open glades running up into it, with fern
and thorn-thickets. There were deer here browsing about the dingles,
which let me come close to them and touch them, raising their heads from
the grass, and regarding me with gentle and fearless eyes. Birds sang
softly among the boughs, and even fluttered to my shoulder, as if
pleased to be noticed. So this was what was called on earth the place of
torment, a place into which it seemed as if nothing of sorrow or pain
could ever intrude!
Just on the edge of the wood stood a little cottage, surrounded by a
quiet garden, bees humming about the flowers, the scents of which came
with a homely sweetness on the air. But here I saw something which I did
not at first understand. This was a group of three people, a man and a
woman and a boy of about seventeen, beside the cottage porch. They had a
rustic air about them, and the same sort of leisurely look that all the
people of the land wore. They were all three beautiful, with a simple
and appropriate kind of beauty, such as comes of a contented sojourn in
the open air. But I became in a moment aware that there was a disturbing
element among them. The two elders seemed to be trying to persuade the
boy, who listened smilingly enough, but half turned away from them, as
though he were going away on some errand of which they did not approve.
They greeted me, as I drew near, with the same cordiality as one
received everywhere, and the man said, "Perhaps you can help us, sir,
for we are in a trouble?" The woman joined with a murmur in the request,
and I said I would gladly do what I could; while I spoke, the boy
watched me earnestly, and something drew me to him, because I saw a look
that seemed to tell me that he was, like myself, a stranger in the
place. Then the man said, "We have lived here together very happily a
long time, we three--I do not know how we came together, but so it was;
and we have been more at ease than words can tell, after hard lives in
the other world; and now this lad here, who has been our delight, says
that he must go elsewhere and cannot stay with us; and we would persuade
him if we could; and perhaps you, sir, who no doubt know what lies
beyond the fields and woods that we see, can satisfy him that it is
better to remain."
While he spoke, the other two had drawn near to me, and the eyes of the
woman dwelt upon the boy with a look of intent love, while the boy
looked in my face anxiously and inquiringly. I could see, I found, very
deep into his heart, and I saw in him a need for further experience, and
a desire to go further on; and I knew at once that this could only be
satisfied in one way, and that something would grow out of it both for
himself and for his companions. So I said, as smilingly as I could, "I
do not indeed know much of the ways of this place, but this I know, that
we must go where we are sent, that no harm can befall us, and that we
are never far away from those whom we love. I myself have lately been
sent to visit this strange land; it seems only yesterday since I left
the mountains yonder, and yet I have seen an abundance of strange and
beautiful things; we must remember that here there is no sickness or
misfortune or growing old; and there is no reason, as there often seemed
to be on earth, why we should fight against separation and departure. No
one can, I think, be hindered here from going where he is bound. So I
believe that you will let the boy go joyfully and willingly, for I am
sure of this, that his journey holds not only great things for himself,
but even greater things for both of you in the future. So be content and
let him depart."
At this the woman said, "Yes, that is right, the stranger is right, and
we must hinder the child no longer. No harm can come of it, but only
good; perhaps he will return, or we may follow him, when the day comes
for that."
I saw that the old man was not wholly satisfied with this. He shook his
head and looked sadly on the boy; and then for a time we sat and talked
of many things. One thing that the old man said surprised me very
greatly. He seemed to have lived many lives, and always lives of labour;
he had grown, I gathered from his simple talk, to have a great love of
the earth, the lives of flocks and herds, and of all the plants that
grew out of the earth or flourished in it. I had thought before, in a
foolish way, that all this might be put away from the spirit, in the
land where there was no need of such things; but I saw now that there
was a claim for labour, and a love of common things, which did not
belong only to the body, but was a real desire of the spirit. He spoke
of the pleasures of tending cattle, of cutting fagots in the forest
woodland among the copses, of ploughing and sowing, with the breath of
the earth about one; till I saw that the toil of the world, which I had
dimly thought of as a thing which no one would do if they were not
obliged, was a real instinct of the spirit, and had its counterpart
beyond the body. I had supposed indeed that in a region where all
troublous accidents of matter were over and done with, and where there
was no need of bodily sustenance, there could be nothing which
resembled the old weary toil of the body; but now I saw gladly that this
was not so, and that the primal needs of the spirit outlast the visible
world. Though my own life had been spent mostly among books and things
of the mind, I knew well the joys of the countryside, the blossoming of
the orchard-close, the high-piled granary, the brightly-painted waggon
loaded with hay, the creaking of the cider-press, the lowing of cattle
in the stall, the stamping of horses in the stable, the mud-stained
implements hanging in the high-roofed, cobwebbed barn. I had never known
why I loved these things so well, and had invented many fancies to
explain it; but now I saw that it was the natural delight in work and
increase; and that the love which surrounded all these things was the
sign that they were real indeed, and that in no part of life could they
be put away. And then there came on me a sort of gentle laughter at the
thought of how much of the religion of the world spent itself on bidding
the heart turn away from vanities, and lose itself in dreams of wonders
and doctrines, and what were called higher and holier things than barns
and byres and sheep-pens. Yet the truth had been staring me in the face
all the time, if only I could have seen it; that the sense of constraint
and unreality that fell upon one in religious matters, when some curious
and intricate matter was confusedly expounded, was perfectly natural and
wholesome; and that the real life of man lay in the things to which one
returned, on work-a-day mornings, with such relief--the acts of life,
the work of homestead, library, barrack, office, and class-room, the
sight and sound of humanity, the smiles and glances and unconsidered
words.
When we had sat together for a time, the boy made haste to depart. We
three went with him to the edge of the wood, where a road passed up
among the oaks. The three embraced and kissed and said many loving
words; and then to ease the anxieties of the two, I said that I would
myself set the boy forward on his way, and see him well bestowed. They
thanked me, and we went together into the wood, the two lovingly waving
and beckoning, and the boy stepping blithely by my side.
I asked him whether he was not sorry to go and leave the quiet place and
the pair that loved him. He smiled and said that he knew he was not
leaving them at all, and that he was sure that they would soon follow;
and that for himself the time had come to know more of the place. I
learned from him that his last life had been an unhappy one, in a
crowded street and a slovenly home, with much evil of talk and act about
him; he had hated it all, he said, but for a little sister that he had
loved, who had kissed and clasped him, weeping, when he lay dying of a
miserable disease. He said that he thought he should find her, which
made part of his joy of going; that for a long while there had come to
him a sense of her remembrance and love; and that he had once sent his
thought back to earth to find her, and she was in much grief and care;
and that then all these messages had at once ceased, and he knew that
she had left the body. He was a merry boy, full of delight and laughter,
and we went very cheerfully together through the sunlit wood, with its
green glades and open spaces, which seemed all full of life and
happiness, creatures living together in goodwill and comfort. I saw in
this journey that all things that ever lived a conscious life in one of
the innumerable worlds had a place and life of their own, and a time of
refreshment like myself. What I could not discern was whether there was
any interchange of lives, whether the soul of the tree could become an
animal, or the animal progress to be a man. It seemed to me that it was
not so, but that each had a separate life of its own. But I saw how
foolish was the fancy that I had pursued in old days, that there was a
central reservoir of life, into which at death all little lives were
merged; I was yet to learn how strangely all life was knit together,
but now I saw that individuality was a real and separate thing, which
could not be broken or lost, and that all things that had ever enjoyed a
consciousness of the privilege of separate life had a true dignity and
worth of existence; and that it was only the body that had made
hostility necessary; that though the body could prey upon the bodies of
animal and plant, yet that no soul could devour or incorporate any other
soul. But as yet the merging of soul in soul through love was unseen and
indeed unsuspected by me.
Now as we went in the wood, the boy and I, it came into my mind in a
flash that I had seen a great secret. I had seen, I knew, very little of
the great land yet--and indeed I had been but in the lowest place of
all: and I thought how base and dull our ideas had been upon earth of
God and His care of men. We had thought of Him dimly as sweeping into
His place of torment and despair all poisoned and diseased lives, all
lives that had clung to the body and to the pleasures of the body, all
who had sinned idly, or wilfully, or proudly; and I saw now that He used
men far more wisely and lovingly than thus. Into this lowest place
indeed passed all sad, and diseased, and unhappy spirits: and instead of
being tormented or accursed, all was made delightful and beautiful for
them there, because they needed not harsh and rough handling, but care
and soft tendance. They were not to be frightened hence, or to live in
fear and anguish, but to live deliciously according to their wish, and
to be drawn to perceive in some quiet manner that all was not well with
them; they were to have their heart's desire, and learn that it could
not satisfy them; but the only thing that could draw them thence was the
love of some other soul whom they must pursue and find, if they could.
It was all so high and reasonable and just that I could not admire it
enough. I saw that the boy was drawn thence by the love of his little
sister, who was elsewhere; and that the love and loss of the boy would
presently draw the older pair to follow him and to leave the place of
heart's delight. And then I began to see that Cynthia and Charmides and
Lucius were being made ready, each at his own time, to leave their
little pleasures and ordered lives of happiness, and to follow
heavenwards in due course. Because it was made plain to me that it was
the love and worship of some other soul that was the constraining force;
but what the end would be I could not discern.
And now as we went through the wood, I began to feel a strange elation
and joy of spirit, severe and bracing, very different from my languid
and half-contented acquiescence in the place of beauty; and now the
woods began to change their kind; there were fewer forest trees now, but
bare heaths with patches of grey sand and scattered pines; and there
began to drift across the light a grey vapour which hid the delicate
hues and colours of the sunlight, and made everything appear pale and
spare. Very soon we came out on the brow of a low hill, and saw, all
spread out before us, a place which, for all its dulness and darkness,
had a solemn beauty of its own. There were great stone buildings very
solidly made, with high chimneys which seemed to stream with smoke; we
could see men, as small as ants, moving in and out of the buildings; it
seemed like a place of manufacture, with a busy life of its own. But
here I suddenly felt that I could go no further, but must return. I
hoped that I should see the grim place again, and I desired with all my
soul to go down into it, and see what eager life it was that was being
lived there. And the boy, I saw, felt this too, and was impatient to
proceed. So we said farewell with much tenderness, and the boy went down
swiftly across the moorland, till he met some one who was coming out of
the city, and conferred a little with him; and then he turned and waved
his hand to me, and I waved my hand from the brow of the hill, envying
him in my heart, and went back in sorrow into the sunshine of the wood.
And as I did so I had a great joy, because I saw Amroth come suddenly
running to me out of the wood, who put his arm through mine, and walked
with me. Then I told him of all I had seen and thought, while he smiled
and nodded and told me it was much as I imagined. "Yes," he said, "it is
even so. The souls you have seen in this fine country here are just as
children who are given their fill of pleasant things. Many of them have
come into the state in which you see them from no fault of their own,
because their souls are young and ignorant. They have shrunk from all
pain and effort and tedium, like a child that does not like his lessons.
There is no thought of punishment, of course. No one learns anything of
punishment except a cowardly fear. We never advance until we have the
will to advance, and there is nothing in mere suffering, unless we learn
to bear it gently for the sake of love. On earth it is not God but man
who is cruel. There is indeed a place of sorrow, which you will see when
you can bear the sight, where the self-righteous and the harsh go for a
time, and all those who have made others suffer because they believed in
their own justice and insight. You will find there all tyrants and
conquerors, and many rich men, who used their wealth heedlessly; and
even so you will be surprised when you see it. But those spirits are the
hardest of all to help, because they have loved nothing but their own
virtue or their own ambition; yet you will see how they too are drawn
thence; and now that you have had a sight of the better country, tell me
how you liked it."
"Why," I said, "it is plain and austere enough; but I felt a great
quickening of spirit, and a desire to join in the labours of the place."
Amroth smiled, and said, "You will have little share in that. You will
find your task, no doubt, when you are strong enough; and now you must
go back and make unwilling holiday with your pleasant friends, you have
not much longer to stay there; and surely"--he laughed as he spoke--"you
can endure a little more of those pretty concerts and charming talk of
art and its values and pulsations!"
"I can endure it," I said, laughing, "for it does me good to see you and
to hear you; but tell me, Amroth, what have you been about all this
time? Have you had a thought of me?"
"Yes, indeed," said Amroth, laughing. "I don't forget you, and I love
your company; but I am a busy man myself, and have something pleasanter
to do than to attend these elegant receptions of yours--at which,
indeed, I have sometimes thought you out of place."
As we thus talked we came to the forest lodge. The old pair came running
out to greet me, and I told them that the boy was well bestowed. I could
see in the woman's face that she would soon follow him, and even the
old man had a look that I had not seen in him before; and here Amroth
left me, and I returned to the city, where all was as peaceable as
before.