One morning I lay upon my bed in the little room which I call my
home. Now, among the eaves which rise opposite to my window
there are many sparrows which have also made their homes. In the
morning, before the sun has arisen, and at the time when the
dawn is making the city gray and leaden in color instead of
somber and black, these sparrows begin to chatter and chirp and
sing in discordant notes, and by this I know the day has come.
Upon this morning it seemed to me the sparrows chattered with an
unusual commotion; and as I listened I heard from another window
near mine the voice of grief and lamentation. Then I knew that
one who had long been sick had passed away. As the gray morning
came on, this spirit, this spark of life, had gone out from its
accustomed place. As the day came on, the sounds of lamentation
arose. The friends of that one wept. So I asked the sparrows,
and the sun, and the gray sky why these friends wept. What is
grief? I asked of them. Why should these weep? What has happened
when one dies? Where has the spark of life gone? Did it fall to
these sodden pavements, for ever done, or did it go on up, to
meet the kiss of the rising sun? And the sparrows, which fall to
the ground, answered not. The sun rose calm and passionless, but
dumb. The sky folded in, large but inscrutable. None the less
arose the voice of lamentation and of woe.
"I ask you, Singing Mouse," said I, one night as we sat alone,
"what is the Truth? How do we reach it? How shall we know it?
Tell me of this spark that has gone out. Tell me, what is life,
and where does it go? There are many words. Tell me, what is the
Truth?"
The Singing Mouse gazed at me in its way of pity, so I knew I
had asked that which could not be. Yet even as I saw this look
appear it changed and vanished. And as the Singing Mouse waved
its tiny paw I forbore reflection and looked only on the scene
which now was spread before me. It seemed a picture of actual
colors, and I could see it plainly.
I saw a youth who stood with one older and of austere garb. By
the vestments of this older man I knew he was of those who teach
people in spiritual things. To him the young man had come in
anguish of heart. Then the older man of priestly garb taught the
young man in the teachings that had come down to him. But the
youth bowed his head in trouble, nor was the cloud cleared upon
his heart. I heard him murmur, "Alas! what is the Truth?"
So I saw this same youth pass on, in various stages of this
picture, and before him I saw drawn, as though in another
picture, a panorama of the edifices and institutions of the
religions of all lands.
But the years passed, and the panorama of beliefs swept by, and
no one could tell this man what was the Truth.
[Illustration]
Yet after this young man had ceased to query and had closed his
books, he one day entered alone into one of the great edifices
built for the sake of that which he could not understand. In the
picture I could see all this. I saw the young man cast himself
face down among the cushions of a seat, and there he lay and
listened to the music. This, too, I could hear. I could hear the
peal of the organ arise like voices of the spirits, going up,
up, whispering, appealing, promising, assuring. Then--for I
could see and hear with him--there came to that young man when
he ceased to seek, the very exaltation he had longed to know.
"Ah! yes, Singing Mouse," I said, "it was very beautiful. But
music is not final. Music is not the Truth. Tell me of these
things."
The Singing Mouse again seemed to hesitate. "It may be," said
the Singing Mouse slowly, "that the Truth will never be found
between the covers of any book, no matter how wise. It may be
that it never will be found by any who search for it always
within walls built by human hands. It may be that no man can
convey to another that which is the Truth to him. It may be that
the Truth can never be grasped, never be weighed or formulated.
"The ways of Nature are always the same, but Nature does not ask
exactness of form. Why, then, shall we ask exactness of faith?
The true faith is nothing final, not more than are final the
carved stones of the church which offers it so strenuously. The
stones crumble and decay, but new churches rise. New faiths will
rise. But were not all well?"
At these things I wondered, and over them I thought for a time,
but yet I did not understand all that the Singing Mouse had
said. As if it knew my thought, the Singing Mouse said to me:
"Your vision is too narrow. You seek the great truths in small
places, and wonder that you do not find them. Come with me."
The Singing Mouse waved its hand, as was its wont, and as in a
dream and as though I were now the young man whom we had lately
seen, I was transported, by what means I could not tell, into a
place far distant. At first it seemed to me there was a figure
in vestments, speaking I scarce knew of what. Again there was a
church or a cathedral. I could see the rafters as I lay. I could
hear the solemn and exalted peal of the organ. I could hear
voices that sang up and up, thrilling, compelling.
The sense of the confinement of the building ceased. Insensibly
I seemed to see the hewn stones of the walls assume their
primeval and untouched state beneath the grasses of the hills.
I could feel the rafters vanishing and going back into the
bodies of the oaks in which they originally grew. The voice of
the organ remained with me, but it might have been the roll of
the waves upon the shore. I was in the Temple. In the Temple,
one needs not seek for names.
It was night. I lay upon a bank of sweet-smelling grasses, and
about me were the great oaks. The organ, or the waves, spoke on.
I looked up, up, into the great circle of the sky, so far, so
blue, so kind in its bending over, so pitying it seemed to me,
yet so high in its up-reaching. I looked upon the glorious
pageant of the stars.
"That star," thought I, "shone over the grave of some ancestor
of mine; back, back in the unmirrored past, some father of some
father of mine. He is gone, like a fly. He is dust. I may be
lying on his grave. Soon, like a fly, I, too, shall be dead,
gone, turned into dust. But the star will still shine on. Small
as that father's dust may be, that dust still lives. It is about
me. This grass, these trees, may hold it. He has lived again in
the cycle of natural forces. My dust, when I am dead, will in
turn make part of this world, one of an unknown sea of stars.
Small then, as I am, I am kin to that star. The stars go on.
Nature goes on. Then shall man--shall I--"
"Ah," said the Singing Mouse, its voice sounding I knew not
whence; "from this place can you see?"
So now I thought I began to see what I had not seen before. And
since this was in the land of the Singing Mouse, I sought to
find no name for what I saw, nor tried to measure it. What one
man sees is not what another sees. Shall one claim wisdom beyond
his neighbor? Are not the stars his also, and the trees his, to
talk with him? Are not the doors always open? Does not the music
of the organ ever roll, do not the voices always rise?
Had it not been for the Singing Mouse I should not have thought
these things.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Where the City Went]
[Illustration]