He woke in the morning and decided that his experience of the night
had been a vivid dream-experience, although that was not to deny a deep
reality to it. A sense of uplifting joy was in his heart that was the
rhythm of some larger life. A new lightness pervaded his very flesh and
bones; it sent him along the narrow passage to the bathroom--dancing,
much to the astonishment of the cook who caught a glimpse of the
phenomenon as she stirred the porridge; it made him sing while he sponged
himself, waking Mrs. Wimble earlier than usual and stirring in her an
unwelcome reminder that she was older, stouter than she had been.
For the singing brought back to her a fugitive memory of a sunny Algerian
garden, where life sang to a measure of blue and gold Romance, now
vanished beyond recall. 'Joe's odd this morning,' she thought, turning
over to sleep upon her other side.
But Joe, meanwhile, splashed in his bath and went on singing just because
he couldn't help himself; his voice was meagre, yet it would come out.
He dried himself, standing in a hot sunbeam on the oil-cloth that made him
feel he caught the entire sun. Such a deluge of happiness, confidence,
natural bliss seemed in him, seemed everywhere about him too. He could
not understand it, but he felt it, and therefore it was real. In the rise
and fall of some larger rhythm than he had ever known he swung above a
world that could no longer cage him in. He saw the bars below him.
Alarm, anxiety, worry, even death were but little obstacles that tried to
trip him up and make him stumble, stop, and give up existence as too
difficult to face. They lay below him now. He saw them from above.
He was in the air. It made him laugh and sing to think that such tricks
could ever have frightened or discouraged him. Actually they were but of
use to stand on for a leap into the air--taking-off-things, spots to
jump from into space.
'I can't explain it,' occurred to him, 'so it must be true.' It was a
thing his daughter might have said. He shared her point of view, it
seemed, completely now. They were in the air together.
And, though later and by degrees, the airy exhilaration left him, so that
he came down to earth and settled, the descent was gradual and without a
thud. Something of lightness and of wonder stayed. The memory of some
loftier point of view guided him all day long amid the tangle of little
difficulties that usually seemed mountainous. He rose lightly above all
obstacles that opposed and hindered. He saw them from above, that is, he
saw them in proportion. Stepping on each in turn, he flew easily over
every one; they served their purpose as jumping-off spots for taking
flight. It was the Bird's-eye point of view.
But each time he flew thus, he left his mind behind, using it as a cushion
for landing later, easily, without a jarring bump. And thus, before the
day was over, he realised somewhat this: that the instantaneous,
spontaneous attitude Joan stole from the air and taught him meant simply
that the subconscious became convincingly, superbly, conscious.
The personality operated as a whole without friction or delay from
separate portions that held back and hesitated. All these lesser,
separate rhythms merged in one. It mobilised, as with a lightning
instinct, the entire available forces of the being. He reacted to every
stimulus as a whole, instead of in separate parts. Action and decision
came in a single flash; to reason, judgment, the weighing of pros and
cons, and so forth, he appealed afterwards. That is, intuitive knowledge
became instantaneous action.
And, realising this, he also grasped what Joan meant by describing a room
as 'happening all at once,' and found meaning also in her nonsense-dream
of feeling for the one-ness of all life everywhere. The details of the
room could be inserted later according to judgment and desire, and
four-footed animals on the ground might also discover later the point of
view of birds who, from a high altitude in the air, saw everything at
once. Instantaneous action, immediate conduct, spontaneous behaviour
enlisted the supporting drive of the entire universe behind them.
Properly accepted, absolutely obeyed, such a way of living ensured
inevitable success. It was irresistible; for since everything was one,
each detail was the whole, and no whole could be disobedient or hostile to
itself. And this was why he had danced along the passage-way and sung
into his sponge.
Yet this attitude of mind, this point of view, was easily lost again;
it was difficult to hold permanently; to practise, still more difficult.
How to translate it into daily action was the problem. At breakfast this
new language of action seemed mere phantasy. He certainly _had_ enjoyed a
dream of a three-dimensional language in which objects and things helped
to interpret his own wishes; he remembered that distinctly; and surely it
was not all imagination? Imagination, he felt sure, included prophecy as
well as memory.
'It's time we found our country cottage,' he remarked, tasting his crisp
Cambridge sausage and bacon. 'I must get to work at once.'
Mother glanced up over the morning newspaper she had crumpled till it
looked like a bundle for lighting the fire. She had ignored the news and
been deep in the advertisements. 'It's best to go to the agents,' she
observed, folding the paper with the creases uneven and the pages mixed,
then patting it into flatness. 'And if they're no good, we might insert
an advertisement stating our exact requirements.' She mopped up a remnant
of fried egg with a thick wedge of brown bread at the end of her fork.
'A nice neighbourhood's the chief thing, isn't it?'
Her husband straightened the paper so that the creases fitted evenly and
the pages lay in sequence. It hurt him acutely to see it twisted; he felt
something out of place inside himself, as though the feathers of a wing
were tangled. 'It'll turn up,' he said airily, 'we shall come across it
suddenly. I'll go and see some agents all the same, though,' he added.
He had the feeling that the right place would hardly come through agents,
but would just 'turn up.' Somehow he would be attracted to it: it would
be there before his eyes; it would jump at him. He had already seen so
many agents. Newspaper advertisements never mentioned it. This strange
belief and faith was in him. 'I'll have a look,' he added, as his wife
put the plates together, swept some crumbs carefully from the cloth, then
tapped the marmalade spoon on the rim of the jar before she sucked it
clean.
'There's no good just hoping and trusting to chance,' she said in a
practical voice. 'Nothing comes _that_ way.' She clicked her tongue,
tasting the marmalade reflectively.
'On the contrary--everything comes that way.' To believe, he grasped, was
to act with the Whole in which all that was required lay contained.
'Enquire within upon everything.' He laughed happily. But his wife had
not followed his thought--nor heard him.
'That's turnip rind, not oranges,' she added. 'They sell you anything
nowadays, and everything's adulterated----' and laid the spoon aside.
'In the country we'll make our own,' her husband interrupted.
'Delicious stuff!'
'If we ever get there,' she replied, 'and if sugar ever goes down again,
and we can get servants who'll condescend to stay. There's no good being
too remote, remember, or we won't keep a single one. Servants won't stand
being dull.' She sighed. Life to her spelt apprehension.
'Well, we've agreed on Sussex, haven't we?' he answered cheerfully,
hunting for his lost new attitude again. 'A nice bit of wayward Sussex,
where there are trees and fields and perhaps a snap of running water so
that the birds'll come--' he saw the cloud on Mother's face--' Oh, but in
a nice neighbourhood with decent neighbours,' he added, 'and a town not
too far away, with a cinema and shops, and so on. Oh, it will come all
right, Mother, don't you worry. We'll find it sure enough--probably this
very day. I feel it coming; it's close already; I can almost see it at
this moment.'
'It's there, waiting for us all the time. The very place,' said Joan
suddenly, clapping her hands softly, and meeting her father's eye.
'Only we've got to want it enough and----'
'Tidy up your place, child,' said Mother sharply, 'and fold your
serviette. It's time you were at your scales.' She sighed as Joan obeyed
and left the room, and two minutes later, while Mother made notes on a
squeaky slate for dinner, the sound of C major came to them through the
wall, going rapidly up and down again with both hands. Only it was
accompanied by a clear and happy voice that sang the notes, or rather sang
a running melody to them that turned even the technical routine into
music. The drudgery, though faithfully done, brought its fulfilment
almost within reach. Like a bird, she leaped upon the promise and enjoyed
it. Scales and music, toil and its results, prophecy and its
accomplishment--even in this tiny detail--seemed present in her
simultaneously. Carelessness and faithful plodding method went side by
side. This came to her father as he lit his pipe and listened to the pure
childish voice that unconsciously sang meaning, even beauty, into formal
rigid outline.
'An all-at-once and all-over little creature,' he heard something whisper
to him. 'Care-less and happy as a bird. The true air quality!
That's the way, of course. I see it--a sort of bird's-eye view of
beginning and end in one. The joy of fulfilment shining through the
actual work. I'll find the cottage that way too!'
He puffed thick clouds of smoke between himself and his wife, who stood
watching him, a touch of apprehension about her somewhere, impatience as
well. She too was listening. He recalled the smile of the badger at the
mouth of its hole. But, at any rate, it was a faithful, practical, and
affectionate badger. Moreover, once--strange memory--it had known wings,
it had been a bird! Wrong methods had brought it down to earth.
It puzzled him dreadfully, yet rather sweetly. The bird, he fancied, must
still lie hidden in her somewhere.
'Joan never can do one thing properly at a time--not even her scales,' she
was saying. 'There she is, trying to sing before she's learnt her notes.
I wish you'd speak to her about it. But, if you ask _me_, _I_ think it's
good money wasted--those music lessons.'
How right she was, he thought, from her point of view. At the same time,
how entirely that point of view lacked vision. A badger criticised a bird
for flying uselessly when there were eggs to be laid and worms to be
pulled up and twigs for a nest to look at instead of rushing landscapes.
'I will, dear. I'll speak to her at once, before I go to see the agents.
I'll bring back good news at dinner-time. Now good-bye, bless you.'
He kissed her. She looked so helpless and pathetic that he kissed her
again, adding 'Good-bye, old thing, don't worry. Take everything lightly
like a bird and remember--Wherever we are, we go!'
'Good-bye, Joe dear. Do your best. You know our limit as to rent.'
He noticed that for once she had not asked him to repeat.
He left the room and walked down the passage to admonish Joan, yet knowing
that there was nothing he could honestly chide her for. She sang at her
scales for the same reason he sang in his bath. In both of them, father
and daughter, was the carelessness and joy of air, the certainty that,
whatever they did on earth with effort, toil, and purpose, had in it--
behind it and sustaining it--the glad sweet element of air. Air had no
divisions, it was whole--a universal radiant element containing end and
beginning, everything. To act with it instantaneously was to be confident
that fulfilment lay already in the smallest germ of every action.
'The cottage lies there waiting for us now. Just look for it with faith
and careless happiness. . . . The perfect music lies within these boring
scales. Just sing to them. It brings accomplishment more swiftly near!'
But on opening the door and poking his head inside, he found that she had
ceased singing and was diligently practising.
'That's right,' he said, smiling; 'it's rather dull, but stick to it.
It'll please your mother, and before long you'll be able to play all my
favourite pieces.'
She stopped, swung round on the stool and looked at him. Her little face
in its wreath of shining hair was very earnest, the eyes big with wonder
as though she had made a great discovery. He had seen a robin thus,
perched on a window-sill, its head cocked sideways at a crumb of bread--
poise, alertness, happiness in the attitude and gesture.
'Well,' he asked, 'what is it now? 'And pointing to the maze of black
printed notes, she said: 'I only wanted to tell you something I've got
hold of--There are only seven notes after all--only seven altogether.'
'That's all, yes.'
'All the music in the world comes out of that--just seven notes--'
'Combinations of them--with a lot of half-notes too,' he explained.
'But half-notes only suggest. The real notes are the thing--just seven of
them. Isn't it jolly? They'll never frighten me again. Now, listen a
moment, Daddy, I'll play you what the wings sing when they rush along.
You know--the sound in the air when birds fly past:
Flow, fly, flow,
Wherever I am, I go;
I live in the air
Without thought or care,
Flow, fly, flow. . . .
She played and sang till he felt every atom in his being moving
rhythmically to the little doggerel. He took her in his arms and hugged
her.
'Ah,' he cried, 'I put all this into you unconsciously, and now you're
explaining it to me. That's fun indeed, isn't it?'
'And I've only used three notes for it--for the tune, I mean,' she
exclaimed breathlessly as he released her. 'I've still got four more.'
He blew her a kiss from the door and went on the top of a 'bus to Dizzy &
Dizzy, who gave him a list of orders to view some half-dozen desirable
cottages and bungalows in Sussex that seemed reasonably within the price
he could afford, but none of which, it so happened, was the thing he
wanted.
And during the day, odd thoughts and feelings, born of that mystic dawn he
had witnessed with the birds, came flitting round him. Being wordless, he
could only translate them as best occurred to him. It was impossible to
keep pace with many-sided life to-day unless a new method were discovered.
To skim adequately among the numerous sources of information and
instruction, wings were needed. With their speed and economy of energy
the feathered mind could dive into all, absorb fresh knowledge instantly,
and pass on swiftly to yet further sources. At present complete
exhaustion followed the mere bodily and mental effort to keep abreast even
with one line of thought and action. The bird's-eye view, involving
bird's-eye action, alone could manage it. It was a case of flow, fly,
flow, indeed. He was dimly aware of a new method coming softly, silently,
from the air. Air meant the spiritual method. While the body, guided by
surefooted, slow, laborious reason, attended to its necessary duties on
the ground, the mind, the soul, the spirit would flow, fly, flow, with the
new powers of the air. . . .
He played lovingly with the idea. He thought of birds as the aborigines
of the air, the pioneers perhaps. They represent no climax of evolution.
On the earth men appeared last, preceded by many stages of earlier
development. Birds were, possibly, but the first, the earliest
inhabitants of their delicious realm, still imperfect, but alive with a
promise for mankind. They were not an ideal, they merely offered their
best qualities to those below.
The Promise of the Air ran through him like a strain of glad spring music.
Air, he knew, as Joan used the term, meant aether, the mother of all air.
She dreamed of passages to dim old gleaming Hercules adrift in open space,
to Cassiopeia, happily, mightily wandering, to the golden blossoms of the
Nebulae's garden of shining gold. Across his mind the great flocks of
stars were flying. . . .
'I'm _not_ a "miserable sinner." It's a lie that "there is no health in
me." Nor do I believe that another man can "forgive my sins," because I
confess them to him, or that those who refuse to believe as I do--whatever
it is I _do_ believe!--shall forfeit my special favours, least of all
suffer the smallest prick of a pin on that account. . . .!'
If ever he had been affected by the dogmatic teaching of any person or
group of persons, alive or dead, he broke finally with them in that
moment.