"Ah, that is all very good," he said at last, "but you must not be in
any hurry; it is a great thing that ideas should dawn upon us
gradually--one gets the full truth of them so. It was the hurry of life
which was so bewildering--the shocks, the surprises, the ugly
reflections of one's conduct that one saw in other lives--the corners
one had to turn. Things, indeed, come suddenly even here, but one is led
up to them gently enough; allowed to enter the sea for oneself, not
soused and ducked in it. You will need all the strength you can store up
for what is before you, and I can see in your face that you are storing
up strength--but the weariness is not quite gone out of your mind."
He was silent for a little, musing, till I said, "Will you not tell me
some of your own adventures? I am sure from your look that you have
them; and you are a pilgrim, it seems. Where are you bound?"
"Oh," he said lightly, "I am not one of the people who have
adventures--just the journey and the talk beside the way."
"But," I said, "I have seen some others like you, and I am puzzled about
it. You seem, if I may say so--I do not mean anything disrespectful or
impertinent--to be like the gipsies whom one meets in quiet country
places, with a secret knowledge of their own, a pride too great to be
worth expressing, not anxious about life, not weary or dissatisfied,
caring not for localities or possessions, but with a sort of eager
pleasure in freedom and movement."
He laughed. "Yes," he said, "you are right! I am no doubt a sort of
nomad, as you say, detached from life perhaps. I don't know that it is
desirable; there is a great deal to be said for living in the same place
and loving the same things. Most people are happier so, and learn what
they have to learn in that manner."
"Yes," I said, "that is true and beautiful--the same old house, the same
trees and pastures, the stream and the water-plants that hide it, the
blue hills beyond the nearer wood--the dear familiar things; but even so
the road which passes through the fields, over the bridge, up the
covert-side ... it leads somewhere, and the heart on sunny days leaps up
to follow it! Talking with you here, I feel a hunger for something wider
and more free; your voice has the sound of the wind, with the secret
knowledge of strange hill-tops and solitary seas! Sometimes the heart
settles down upon what it knows and loves, but sometimes it reaches out
to all the love and beauty hidden in the world, and in the waters beyond
the world, and would embrace it all if it could. The faces one sees as
one passes through unfamiliar cities or villages, how one longs to talk,
to question, to ask what gave them the look they wear.... And you, if I
may say it, seem to have passed beyond the need of wanting or desiring
anything ... but I must not talk thus to a stranger; you must forgive
me."
"Forgive you?" said the stranger; "that is only an earthly phrase--the
old terror of indiscretion and caution. What are we here for but to get
acquainted with one another--to let our inmost thoughts talk together?
In the world we are bounded by time and space, and we have the terror of
each other's glances and exteriors to contend with. We make friends on
earth in spite of our limitations; but in heaven we get to know each
other's hearts; and that blessing goes back with us to the dim fields
and narrow houses of the earth. I see plainly enough that you are not
perfectly happy; but one can only win content through discontent. Where
you are now, you are not in accord with the souls about you. Never mind
that! There are beautiful spirits within reach of your hand and heart; a
little clouded by mistaking the quality of joy, no doubt, but great and
everlasting for all that. You must try to draw near to them, and find
spirits to love. Do you not remember in the days of earth how one felt
sometimes in an unfamiliar place--among a gathering of strangers--at
church perhaps, or at some school which one visited, where one saw the
young faces, which showed so clearly, before the world had stamped
itself in frowns and heaviness upon them, the quality of the soul
within? Don't you remember the feeling at such times of how many there
were in the world whom one might love, if one had leisure and
opportunity and energy? Well, there is no need to resist that, or to
deplore it here; one may go where one's will inclines one, and speak as
one's heart tells one to speak. I think you are perhaps too conscious of
waiting for something. Your task lies ahead of you, but the work of love
can begin at once and anywhere."
"Yes," I said, "I feel that now and here. Will you not tell me something
of yourself in return? I cannot read your mind clearly--it is occupied
with something I cannot grasp--what is your work in heaven?"
"Oh," he said lightly, "that is easy enough, and yet you would not
understand it. I have been led through the shadow of fear, and I have
passed out on the other side. And my duty is to release others from
fear, as far as I can. It is the darkest shadow of all, because it
dwells in the unknown. Pain, without it, is no suffering at all; indeed
pain is almost a pleasure, when one knows what it is doing for one. But
fear is the doubt whether pain or suffering are really helping us; and
just as memory never has any touch of fear about it, so hope may
likewise have done with fear."
"But how did you learn this?" I said.
"Only by fearing to the uttermost," he replied. "The power--it is not
courage, because that only defies fear--cannot be given one; it must be
painfully won. You remember the blessing of the pure in heart, that they
shall see God? There would be little hope in that promise for the soul
that knew itself to be impure, if it were not for the other side of
it--that the vision of God, which is the most terrible of all things,
can give purity to the most sin-stained soul. In that vision, all desire
and all fear have an end, because there is nothing left either to desire
or to dread. That vision we may delay or hasten. We may delay it, if we
allow our prudence, or our shame, or our comfort, to get in the way: we
may hasten it, if we cast ourselves at every moment of our pilgrimage
upon the mercy and the love of God. His one desire is that we should be
satisfied; and if He seems to put obstacles in our way, to keep us
waiting, to permit us to be miserable, that is only that we may learn to
cast ourselves into love and service--which is the one way to His heart.
But now I must be going, for I have said all that you can bear. Will you
remember this--not to reserve yourself, not to think others unworthy or
hostile, but to cast your love and trust freely and lavishly, everywhere
and anywhere? We must gather nothing, hold on to nothing, just give
ourselves away at every moment, flowing like the stream into every
channel that is open, withholding nothing, retaining nothing. I see," he
added, "very great and beautiful things ahead of you, and very sad and
painful things as well. But you are close to the light, and it is
breaking all about you with a splendour which you cannot guess."
He rose up, he took my hand in his own and laid the other on my brow,
and I felt his heart go out to mine and gather me to him, as a child is
gathered to a father's arms. And then he went silently and lightly upon
his way.