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Page 19
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.
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