They wore each one a gay dress, In sleep, if you understand, When earth puts off its grey dress To robe it in faeryland.

Then loud o'erhead was a humming As clear as the wood wind rings; And here were the air-boats coming And here the airy kings.

The magic barks were gleaming And swift as the feathered throng: With wonder-lights out-streaming They blew themselves along.

And up on the night-wind swimming, With pose and dart and rise, Away went the air fleet skimming Through a haze of jewel skies.

One boat above them drifted Apart from the flying bands, And an air-chief bent and lifted The children with mighty hands.

The children wondered greatly, Three air-chiefs met them there, They were tall and grave and stately With bodies of purple air.

A pearl light with misty shimmer Went dancing about them all, As the dyes of the moonbow glimmer On a trembling waterfall.

The trail of the fleet to the far lands Was wavy along the night, And on through the sapphire starlands They followed the wake of light.

"Look down, Aileen," said Rory, "The earth's as thin as a dream." It was lit by a sun-fire glory Outraying gleam on gleam.

They saw through the dream-world under Its heart of rainbow flame Where the starry people wander; Like gods they went and came.

The children looked without talking Till Roray spoke again, "Are those our folk who are walking Like little shadow men?

"They don't see what is about them, They look like pigmies small, The world would be full without them And they think themselves so tall!"

The magic bark went fleeting Like an eagle on and on; Till over its prow came beating The foam-light of the dawn.

The children's dream grew fainter, Three air-chiefs still were there, But the sun the shadow painter Drew five on the misty air.

The dream-light whirled bewild'ring, An air-chief said, "You know. You are living now, my children, Ten thousand years ago."

They looked at themselves in the old light, And mourned the days of the new Where naught is but darkness or cold light, Till a bell came striking through.

"We must go," said the wise young sages: It was five at dawn by the chimes, And they ran through a thousand ages From the old De Danaan Times.

—August 15, 1896



The Palaces of the Sidhe

Two small sweet lives together From dawn till the dew falls down, They danced over rock and heather Away from the dusty town.

Dark eyes like stars set in pansies, Blue eyes like a hero's bold— Their thoughts were all pearl-light fancies, Their hearts in the age of gold.

They crooned o'er many a fable And longed for the bright-capped elves, The faery folk who are able To make us faery ourselves.

A hush on the children stealing They stood there hand in hand, For the elfin chimes were pealing Aloud in the underland.

And over the grey rock sliding, A fiery colour ran, And out of its thickness gliding The twinkling mist of a man—

To-day for the children had fled to An ancient yesterday, And the rill from its tunnelled bed too Had turned another way.

Then down through an open hollow The old man led with a smile: "Come, star-hearts, my children, follow To the elfin land awhile."

The bells above them were hanging, Whenever the earth-breath blew It made them go clanging, clanging, The vasty mountain through.

But louder yet than the ringing Came the chant of the elfin choir, Till the mountain was mad with singing And dense with the forms of fire.

The kings of the faery races Sat high on the thrones of might, And infinite years from their faces Looked out through eyes of light.

And one in a diamond splendour Shone brightest of all that hour, More lofty and pure and tender, They called him the Flower of Power.

The palace walls were glowing Like stars together drawn, And a fountain of air was flowing The primrose colour of dawn.

"Ah, see!" said Aileen sighing, With a bend of her saddened head Where a mighty hero was lying, He looked like one who was dead.

"He will wake," said their guide, "'tis but seeming, And, oh, what his eyes shall see I will know of only in dreaming Till I lie there still as he."

They chanted the song of waking, They breathed on him with fire, Till the hero-spirit outbreaking, Shot radiant above the choir.

Like a pillar of opal glory Lit through with many a gem— "Why, look at him now," said Rory, "He has turned to a faery like them!"

The elfin kings ascending Leaped up from the thrones of might, And one with another blending They vanished in air and light.

The rill to its bed came splashing With rocks on the top of that: The children awoke with a flashing Of wonder, "What were we at?"

They groped through the reeds and clover— "What funny old markings: look here, They have scrawled the rocks all over: It's just where the door was: how queer!"

—September 15, 1896



The Voice of the Wise

They sat with hearts untroubled, The clear sky sparkled above, And an ancient wisdom bubbled From the lips of a youthful love.

They read in a coloured history Of Egypt and of the Nile, And half it seemed a mystery, Familiar, half, the while.

Till living out of the story Grew old Egyptian men, And a shadow looked forth Rory And said, "We meet again!"

And over Aileen a maiden Looked back through the ages dim: She laughed, and her eyes were laden With an old-time love for him.

In a mist came temples thronging With sphinxes seen in a row, And the rest of the day was a longing For their homes of long ago.

"We'd go there if they'd let us," They said with wounded pride: "They never think when they pet us We are old like that inside."

There was some one round them straying The whole of the long day through, Who seemed to say, "I am playing At hide-and-seek with you."

And one thing after another Was whispered out of the air, How God was a big kind brother Whose home was in everywhere.

His light like a smile come glancing From the cool, cool winds as they pass; From the flowers in heaven dancing And the stars that shine in the grass,

And the clouds in deep blue wreathing, And most from the mountains tall, But God like a wind goes breathing A heart-light of gold in all.

It grows like a tree and pushes Its way through the inner gloom, And flowers in quick little rushes Of love to a magic bloom.

And no one need sigh now or sorrow Whenever the heart-light flies, For it comes again on some morrow And nobody ever dies.

The heart of the Wise was beating In the children's heart that day, And many a thought came fleeting, And fancies solemn and gay.

They were grave in a way divining How childhood was taking wings, And the wonder world was shining With vast eternal things.

The solemn twilight fluttered Like the plumes of seraphim, And they felt what things were uttered In the sunset voice of Him.

They lingered long, for dearer Than home were the mountain places Where God from the stars dropt nearer Their pale, dreamy faces.

Their very hearts from beating They stilled in awed delight. For Spirit and children were meeting In the purple, ample night.

Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies Over twilight mountains where the heart-songs rise, Rise and fall and fade again from earth to air: Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there. Come, ma cushla, come, as in ancient times Rings aloud and the underland with faery chimes. Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece Winding ever onward to a fold of peace, So my dreams go straying in a land more fair; Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there. Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold: Come, ma cushla, with me to the mountain's fold, Where the bright ones call us waving to and fro: Come, my children, with me to the Ancient go.

—October 15, 1896



A Dawn Song

While the earth is dark and grey How I laugh within: I know In my breast what ardours gay From the morning overflow.

Though the cheek be white and wet In my heart no fear may fall: There my chieftain leads, and yet Ancient battle-trumpets call.

Bend on me no hasty frown If my spirit slight your cares: Sunlike still my joy looks down Changing tears to beamy airs.

Think me not of fickle heart If with joy my bosom swells Though your ways from mine depart: In the true are no farewells.

What I love in you I find Everywhere. A friend I greet In each flower and tree and wind— Oh, but life is sweet, is sweet.

What to you are bolts and bars Are to me the hands that guide To the freedom of the stars Where my golden kinsmen bide.

From my mountain top I view: Twilight's purple flower is gone, And I send my song to you On the level light of dawn.

—November 15, 1896



—An Ancient Eden

Our legends tell of aery fountains upspringing in Eri, and how the people of long ago saw them not but only the Tuatha de Danaan. Some deem it was the natural outflow of water at these places which was held to be sacred; but above fountain, rill and river rose up the enchanted froth and foam of invisible rills and rivers breaking forth from Tir-na-noge, the soul of the island, and glittering in the sunlight of its mystic day. What we see here is imaged forth from that invisible soul and is a path thereto. In the heroic Epic of Cuculain Standish O'Grady writes of such a fountain, and prefixes his chapter with the verse from Genesis, "And four rivers went forth from Eden to water the garden," and what follows in reference thereto.

The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty —A Dream

I would I could weave in The colour, the wonder, The song I conceive in My heart while I ponder,

And show how it came like The magi of old Whose chant was a flame like The dawn's voice of gold;

Who dreams followed near them A murmur of birds, And ear still could hear them Unchanted in words.

In words I can only Reveal thee my heart, Oh, Light of the Lonely, The shining impart.

Between the twilight and the dark The lights danced up before my eyes: I found no sleep or peace or rest, But dreams of stars and burning skies.

I knew the faces of the day— Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair, I know you not nor yet your home, The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?

I passed a dream of gloomy ways Where ne'er did human feet intrude: It was the border of a wood, A dreadful forest solitude.

With wondrous red and fairy gold The clouds were woven o'er the ocean; The stars in fiery aether swung And danced with gay and glittering motion.

A fire leaped up within my heart When first I saw the old sea shine; As if a god were there revealed I bowed my head in awe divine;

And long beside the dim sea marge I mused until the gathering haze Veiled from me where the silver tide Ran in its thousand shadowy ways.

The black night dropped upon the sea: The silent awe came down with it: I saw fantastic vapours flit As o'er the darkness of the pit.

When, lo! from out the furthest night A speck of rose and silver light Above a boat shaped wondrously Came floating swiftly o'er the sea.

It was no human will that bore The boat so fleetly to the shore Without a sail spread or an oar.

The Pilot stood erect thereon And lifted up his ancient face, (Ancient with glad eternal youth Like one who was of starry race.)

His face was rich with dusky bloom; His eyes a bronze and golden fire; His hair in streams of silver light Hung flamelike on his strange attire

Which starred with many a mystic sign, Fell as o'er sunlit ruby glowing: His light flew o'er the waves afar In ruddy ripples on each bar Along the spiral pathways flowing.

It was a crystal boat that chased The light along the watery waste, Till caught amid the surges hoary The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.

Oh, never such a glory was: The pale moon shot it through and through With light of lilac, white and blue: And there mid many a fairy hue Of pearl and pink and amethyst, Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams And wove around a wonder-mist.

The Pilot lifted beckoning hands; Silent I went with deep amaze To know why came this Beam of Light So far along the ocean ways Out of the vast and shadowy night.

"Make haste, make haste!" he cried. "Away! A thousand ages now are gone. Yet thou and I ere night be sped Will reck no more of eve or dawn."

Swift as the swallow to its nest I leaped: my body dropt right down: A silver star I rose and flew. A flame burned golden at his breast: I entered at the heart and knew My Brother-Self who roams the deep, Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.

The ruby body wrapped us round As twain in one: we left behind The league-long murmur of the shore And fleeted swifter than the wind.

The distance rushed upon the bark: We neared unto the mystic isles: The heavenly city we could mark, Its mountain light, its jewel dark, Its pinnacles and starry piles.

The glory brightened: "Do not fear; For we are real, though what seems So proudly built above the waves Is but one mighty spirit's dreams.

"Our Father's house hath many fanes; Yet enter not and worship not, For thought but follows after thought Till last consuming self it wanes.

"The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings Its glamour o'er the light of day: A music in the sunlight sings To call the dreamy hearts away Their mighty hopes to ease awhile: We will not go the way of them: The chant makes drowsy those who seek The sceptre and the diadem.

"The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws Its magic round us all the night; What things the heart would be, it sees And chases them in endless flight. Or coiled in phantom visions there It builds within the halls of fire; Its dreams flash like the peacock's wing And glow with sun-hues of desire. We will not follow in their ways Nor heed the lure of fay or elf, But in the ending of our days Rest in the high Ancestral Self."

The boat of crystal touched the shore, Then melted flamelike from our eyes, As in the twilight drops the sun Withdrawing rays of paradise.

We hurried under arched aisles That far above in heaven withdrawn With cloudy pillars stormed the night, Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.

I would have lingered then—but he— "Oh, let us haste: the dream grows dim, Another night, another day, A thousand years will part from him

"Who is that Ancient One divine From whom our phantom being born Rolled with the wonder-light around Had started in the fairy morn.

"A thousand of our years to him Are but the night, are but the day, Wherein he rests from cyclic toil Or chants the song of starry sway.

"He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount Fills all our heart with dreams of light: He wakes to ancient spheres, and we Through iron ages mourn the night. We will not wander in the night But in a darkness more divine Shall join the Father Light of Lights And rule the long-descended line."

Even then a vasty twilight fell: Wavered in air the shadowy towers: The city like a gleaming shell, Its azures, opals, silvers, blues, Were melting in more dreamy hues. We feared the falling of the night And hurried more our headlong flight. In one long line the towers went by; The trembling radiance dropt behind, As when some swift and radiant one Flits by and flings upon the wind The rainbow tresses of the sun.

And then they vanished from our gaze Faded the magic lights, and all Into a Starry Radiance fell As waters in their fountain fall.

We knew our time-long journey o'er And knew the end of all desire, And saw within the emerald glow Our Father like the white sun-fire.

We could not say if age or youth Were on his face: we only burned To pass the gateways of the Day, The exiles to the heart returned.

He rose to greet us and his breath, The tempest music of the spheres, Dissolved the memory of earth, The cyclic labour and our tears. In him our dream of sorrow passed, The spirit once again was free And heard the song the Morning-Stars Chant in eternal revelry.

This was the close of human story; We saw the deep unmeasured shine, And sank within the mystic glory They called of old the Dark Divine.

Well it is gone now, The dream that I chanted: On this side the dawn now I sit fate-implanted.

But though of my dreaming The dawn has bereft me, It all was not seeming For something has left me.

I fell in some other World far from this cold light The Dream Bird, my brother, Is rayed with the gold light.

I too in the Father Would hide me, and so, Bright Bird, to foregather With thee now I go.

—December 15, 1896



A New Earth

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims within his ken."

I who had sought afar from earth The faery land to greet, Now find content within its girth, And wonder nigh my feet.

To-day a nearer love I choose And seek no distant sphere, For aureoled by faery dews The dear brown breasts appear.

With rainbow radiance come and go The airy breaths of day, And eve is all a pearly glow With moonlit winds a-play.

The lips of twilight burn my brow, The arms of night caress: Glimmer her white eyes drooping now With grave old tenderness.

I close mine eyes from dream to be The diamond-rayed again, As in the ancient hours ere we Forgot ourselves to men.

And all I thought of heaven before I find in earth below, A sunlight in the hidden core To dim the noon-day glow.

And with the Earth my heart is glad, I move as one of old, With mists of silver I am clad And bright with burning gold.

—February 1896



Duality

"From me spring good and evil." Who gave thee such a ruby flaming heart, And such a pure cold spirit? Side by side I know these must eternally abide In intimate war, and each to each impart Life from their pain, with every joy a dart To wound with grief or death the self-allied. Red life within the spirit crucified, The eyes eternal pity thee, thou art Fated with deathless powers at war to be, Not less the martyr of the world than he Whose thorn-crowned brow usurps the due of tears We would pay to thee, ever ruddy life, Whose passionate peace is still to be at strife, O'erthrown but in the unconflicting spheres.

—March 15, 1896 (This is unsigned, but in AE's "Collected Poems")



The Element Language



In a chapter in the Secret Doctrine dealing with the origin of language, H.P. Blavatsky makes some statements which are quoted here and which should be borne well in mind in considering what follows. "The Second Race had a 'Sound Language,' to wit, chant-like sounds composed of vowels alone." From this developed "monosyllabic speech which was the vowel parent, so to speak, of the monosyllabic languages mixed with hard consonants still in use among the yellow races which are known to the anthropologist. The linguistic characteristics developed into the agglutinative languages.... The inflectional speech, the root of the Sanskrit, was the first language (now the mystery tongue of the Initiates) of the Fifth Race."

The nature of that language has not been disclosed along with other teaching concerning the evolution of the race, but like many other secrets the details of which are still preserved by the Initiates, it is implied in what has already been revealed. The application to speech of the abstract formula of evolution which they have put forward should result in its discovery, for the clue lies in correspondences; know the nature of any one thing perfectly, learn its genesis, development and consummation, and you have the key to all the mysteries of nature. The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm. But, before applying this key, it is well to glean whatever hints have been given, so that there may be less chance of going astray in our application. First, we gather from the Secret Doctrine that the sounds of the human voice are correlated with the forces, colours, numbers and forms. "Every letter has its occult meaning, the vowels especially contain the most occult and formidable potencies." (S.D., I, 94) and again it is said "The magic of the ancient priests consisted in those days in addressing their gods in their own language. The speech of the men of earth cannot reach the Lords, each must be addressed in the language of his respective element"—-is a sentence which will be shown pregnant with meaning. "The book of rules" cited adds as an explanation of the nature of that element- language: "It is composed of Sounds, not words; of sounds, numbers and figures. He who knows how to blend the three, will call forth the response of the superintending Power" (the regent-god of the specific element needed). Thus this "language is that of incantations or of Mantras, as they are called in India, sound being the most potent and effectual magic agent, and the first of the keys which opens the door of communication between mortals and immortals." (S.D. I, 464)

From these quotations it will be seen that the occult teachings as to speech are directly at variance with the theories of many philologists and evolutionists. A first speech which was like song— another and more developed speech which is held sacred—an esoteric side to speech in which the elements of our conventional languages (i.e. the letters) are so arranged that speech becomes potent enough to guide the elements, and human speech becomes the speech of the gods—there is no kinship between this ideal language and the ejaculations and mimicry which so many hold to be the root and beginning of it. Yet those who wish to defend their right to hold the occult teaching have little to fear from the champions of these theories; they need not at all possess any deep scholarship or linguistic attainment; the most cursory view of the roots of primitive speech, so far as they have been collected, will show that they contain few or no sounds of a character which would bear out either the onomatopoetic or interjectional theories. The vast majority of the roots of the Aryan language express abstract ideas, they rarely indicate the particular actions which would be capable of being suggested by any mimicry possible to the human voice. I have selected at random from a list of roots their English equivalents, in order to show the character of the roots and to make clearer the difficulty of holding such views. The abstract nature of the ideas, relating to actions and things which often have no attendant sound in nature, will indicate what I mean. What possible sounds could mimic the sense of "to move, to shine, to gain, to flow, to burn, to blow, to live, to possess, to cover, to fall, to praise, to think"? In fact the most abstract of all seem the most primitive for we find them most fruitful in combination to for other words. I hope to show this clearly later on. It is unnecessary to discuss the claims of the interjectional theory, as it is only a theory, and there are few roots for which we could infer even a remote origin of this nature. The great objection to the theory that speech was originally a matter of convention and mutual agreement, is the scarcity of words among the roots which express the wants of primitive man. As it is, a wisdom within or beyond the Aryan led him to construct in these roots with their abstract significance an ideal foundation from which a great language could be developed. However as the exponents of rival theories have demolished each other's arguments, without anyone having established a clear case for himself, it is not necessary here to do more than indicate these theories and how they may be met.

In putting forward a hypothesis more in accord with the doctrine of the spiritual origin of man, and in harmony with those occult ideas concerning speech already quoted, I stand in a rather unusual position, as I have to confess my ignorance of any of these primitive languages. I am rather inclined however, to regard this on the whole as an advantage for the following reasons. I think primitive man (the early Aryan) chose his words by a certain intuition which recognised an innate correspondence between the thought and the symbol. Para passu with the growing complexity of civilization language lost it spiritual character, "it fell into matter," to use H.P. Blavatsky's expression; as the conventional words necessary to define artificial products grew in number, in the memory of these words the spontaneity of speech was lost, and that faculty became atrophied which enable man to arrange with psychic rapidity ever new combinations of sounds to express emotion and thought. Believing then that speech was originally intuitive, and that it only need introspection and a careful analysis of the sounds of the human voice, to recover the faculty and correspondences between these sounds and forces, colours, forms, etc., it will be seen why I do not regard my ignorance of these languages as altogether a drawback. The correspondences necessarily had to be evolved out of my inner consciousness, and in doing this no aid could be derived from the Aryan roots as they now stand. In the meaning attached to each letter is to be found the key to the meaning and origin of roots; but the value of each sound separately could never be discovered by an examination of them in their combinations, though their value and purpose in combination to form words might be evident enough once the significance of the letters is shewn. Any lack of knowledge then is only a disadvantage in this, that it limits the area from which to choose illustrations. I have felt it necessary to preface what I have to say with this confession, to show exactly the position in which I stand. The correspondences between sounds and forces were first evolved, and an examination of the Aryan roots proved the key capable of application.

———— Note:—In an article which appeared in the Theosophist, Dec. 1887, I had attempted, with the assistance of my friend Mr. Chas. Johnston, to put forward some of the ideas which form the subject matter of this paper. Owing to the numerous misprints which rendered it unintelligible I have felt it necessary to altogether re-write it. —-G.W.R. ————

It is advisable at this point to consider how correspondences arose between things seeming so diverse as sounds, forms, colors and forces. It is evident that they could only come about through the existence of a common and primal cause reflecting itself everywhere in different elements and various forms of life. This primal unity lies at the root of all occult philosophy and science; the One becomes Many; the ideas latent in Universal Mind are thrown outwards into manifestation. In the Bhagavad-Gita (chap. IV) Krishna declares: "even though myself unborn, of changeless essence, and the lord of all existence, yet in presiding over nature—which is mine—I am born but through my own maya, the mystic power of self-ideation, the eternal thought in the eternal mind." "I establish the universe with a single portion of myself and remain separate;" he says later on, and in so presiding he becomes the cause of the appearance of the different qualities. "I am in the taste in water, the light in the sun and moon, the mystic syllable OM in all the Vedas, sound in space, the masculine essence in men, the sweet smell in the earth, the brightness in the fire" etc. Pouring forth then from one fountain we should expect to find correspondences running everywhere throughout nature; we should expect to find all these things capable of correlation. Coexistent with manifestation arise the ideas of time and space, and these qualities, attributes or forces, which are latent and unified in the germinal thought, undergo a dual transformation; they appear successively in time, and what we call evolution progresses through Kalpa after Kalpa and Manvantara after Manvantara: the moods which dominate these periods incarnate in matter, which undergoes endless transformations and takes upon itself all forms in embodying these sates of consciousness.

The order in which these powers manifest is declared in the Puranas, Upanishads and Tantric works. It is that abstract formula of evolution which we can apply alike to the great and little things in nature. This may be stated in many ways, but to put it briefly, there is at first one divine Substance-Principle, Flame, Motion or the Great Breath; from this emanate the elements Akasa, ether, fire, air, water and earth; the spiritual quality becoming gradually lessened in these as they are further removed from their divine source; this is the descent into matter, the lowest rung of manifestation. "Having consolidated itself in its last principle as gross matter, it revolves around itself and informs with the seventh emanation of the last, the first and lowest element." (S.D. I, p. 297) This involution of the higher into the lower urges life upwards through the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, until it culminates in spiritually and self consciousness. It is not necessary here to go more into detail, it is enough to say that the elements in nature begin as passive qualities, their ethereal nature becomes gross, then positive and finally spiritual, and this abstract formula holds good for everything in nature. These changes which take place in the universe are repeated in man its microcosm, the cosmic force which acts upon matter and builds up systems of suns and planets, working in him repeats itself and builds up a complex organism which corresponds and is correlated with its cosmic counterpart. The individual spirit Purusha dwells in the heart of every creature, its powers ray forth everywhere; they pervade the different principles or vehicles; they act through the organs of sense; they play upon the different plexuses; every principle and organ being specialised as the vehicle for a particular force or state of consciousness. All the sounds we can utter have their significance; they express moods; they create forms; they arouse to active life within ourselves spiritual and psychic forces which are centered in various parts of the body. Hence the whole organism of man is woven through and through with such correspondences; our thoughts, emotions, sensations, the forces we use, colours and sounds acting on different planes are all correlated among themselves, and are also connected with the forces evolving present about us, in which we live and move. We find such correspondences form the subject matter of many Upanishads and other occult treatises; for example in Yajnavalkyasamhita, a treatise on Yoga philosophy, we find the sound "Ra" associated with the element of fire, Tejas Tatwa, with the God Rudra, with a centre in the body just below the heart. Other books add, as correspondences of Tejas Tatwa, that its colour is red, its taste is hot, its form is a triangle and its force is expansion. The correspondences given in different treatises often vary; but what we can gather with certainty is that there must have existed a complete science of the subject; the correlation of sound with such things, once understood, is the key which explains, not only the magic potency of sound, but also the constuction of those roots which remain as relics of the primitive Aryan speech.

The thinking principle in man, having experiences of nature through its vehicles, the subtle, astral and gross physical bodies, translates these sensations into its own set of correspondences: this principle in man, called the Manas, is associated with the element of akasa, whose property is sound; the Manas moves about in akasa, and so all ideas which enter into the mind awaken their correspondences and are immediately mirrored in sound. Let us take as an instance the perception of the colour red; this communicated to the mind would set up a vibration, causing a sound to be thrown outwards in mental manifestation, and in this way the impulse would arise to utter the letter R, the correspondence of this colour. This Manasic principle in man, the real Ego, is eternal in its nature; it exists before and after the body, something accruing to it from each incarnation; and so, because there is present in the body of man this long-traveled soul, bearing with it traces of its eternal past, these letters which are the elements of its speech have impressed on them a correspondence, not only with the forces natural to its transitory surroundings, but also with that vaster evolution of nature in which it has taken part. These correspondences next claim our attention.

The correspondences here suggested do not I think at all exhaust the possible significance of any of the letters. Every sound ought to have a septenary relation to the planes of consciousness, and the differentiations of life, force and matter on each. Complete mastery of these would enable the knower to guide the various currents of force, and to control the elemental knower to guide the various currents of force, and to control the elemental beings who live on the astral planes, for these respond, we are told, "when the exact scale of being to which they belong is vibrated, whether it be that of colour, form, sound or whatever else," (Path, May, 1886) These higher interpretations I am unable to give; it requires the deeper being to know the deeper meaning. Those here appended may prove suggestive; I do not claim any finality or authority for them, but they may be interesting to students of the occult Upanishads where the mystic power of sound is continually dwelt upon.

The best method of arranging the letters is to begin with A and conclude with M or OO: between these lie all the other letters, and their successive order is determined by their spiritual or material quality. Following A we get letters with an ethereal or liquid sound, such as R, H, L or Y; they become gradually harsher as they pass from the A, following the order of nature in this. Half way we get letters like K, J, TCHAY, S, or ISH; then they become softer, and the labials, like F, B and M, have something of the musical quality of the earlier sounds. If we arrange them in this manner, it will be found to approximate very closely to the actual order in which the sounds arise in the process of formation. We begin then with

A—This represents God, creative force, the Self, the I, the beginning or first cause. "Among letters I am the vowel A," says Krishna in the Bagavad. It is without colour, number or form.

R—This is motion, air, breath or spirit; it is also abstract desire, and here we find the teaching of the Rig-Veda in harmony. "Desire first arose in It which was the primal germ of mind, and which sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their hearts to be the bond which connects Entity with non-Entity." The corresponding colour of this letter is Red.

H (hay) and L—Motion awakens Heat and Light which correspond respectively to H and L. That primordial ocean of being, says the book of Dzyan, was "fire and heat and motion:" which are explained as the noumenal essences of these material manifestations. The colour of H is Orange, of L yellow. L also conveys the sense of radiation.

Y (yea)—This letter signifies condensation, drawing together, the force of attraction, affinity. Matter at the stage of evolution to which this refers is gaseous, nebulous, or ethereal: the fire- mists in space gather together to become worlds. The colour Y is green.

W (way)—Water is the next element in manifestation: in cosmic evolution it is spoken of as chaos, the great Deep; its colour, I think, is indigo. After this stage the elements no longer manifest singly, but in pairs, or with a dual aspect.

G (gay) and K—Reflection and Hardness; matter becomes crystalline or metalic: the corresponding colour is blue.

S and Z—A further differentiation; matter is atomic: the abstract significance of number or seed is attached to these letters: their colour is violet.

J and Tchay—Earth and gross Substance: this is the lowest point in evolution; the worlds have now condensed into solid matter. The colour of these letters is orange.

N and Ng—Some new forces begin to work here; the corresponding sounds have, I think, the meaning of continuation and transformation or change: these new forces propel evolution in the upward or ascending arc: their colour is yellow.

D and T—The colour of these letters is red. The involution of the higher forces into the lower forms alluded to before now begins. D represents this infusion of life into matter; it is descent and involution, death or forgetfulness, perhaps, for a time to the incarnating power. T is evolution, the upward movement generating life; the imprisoned energies surge outwards and vegetation begins.

Ith and Ish—These correspond respectively to growth or expansion and vegetation; the earth, as Genesis puts it, "puts forth grass and herbs and trees yielding fruit." The colour of these letters is green.

B and P—After the flora the fauna. B is Life or Being, animal and human. Humanity appears; B is masculine, P feminine. P has also a meaning of division, differentiation or production, which may refer to maternity. The colour here is blue.

F and V—The colour is violet. Evolution moves still upwards, entering the ethereal planes once more. Lightness and vastness are the characteristics of this stage: we begin to permeate with part of our nature the higher spheres of being and reach the consummation in the last stage, represented by

M—which has many meanings; it is thought, it is the end or death to the personality, it is the Receiver into which all flows, it is also the Symbol of maternity in a universal sense, it has this meaning when the life impulse (which is always represented by a vowel) follows it, as in "ma." It is the Pralaya of the worlds; the lips close as it is uttered. Its colour is indigo.

O—The last vowel sound symbolizes abstract space, the spirit assumes once more the garment of primordial matter; it is the Nirvana of eastern philosophy.

I will now try to show how the abstract significance of these sound reveals a deeper meaning in the roots of Aryan language than philologists generally allow. Prof. Max Muller says in the introduction to Biographies of Words. "Of ultimates in the sense of primary elements of language, we can never hope to know anything," and he also asserts that the roots are incapable of further analysis. I will endeavour now to show that this further analysis can be made.

I should not be understood to say that all the so-called roots can be made to yield a secret meaning when analysed. Philologists are not all agreed as to what constitutes a root, or what words are roots, and in this general uncertainty it should not be expected that these correspondences, which as I have said are not complete, will apply in every instance. There are many other things which add to the difficulty; a root is often found to have very many different meanings; some of these may have arisen in the manner I suggest, and many more are derived from the primary meanings and are therefore not intuitive at all. The intuition will have to be exercised to discover what sensations would likely be awakened by the perception of an action or object; or if the root has an abstract significance, the thought must be analysed in order to discover its essential elements. I described previously the manner in which I thought a single sensation, the perception of the colour Red, would suggest its correspondence in sound, the letter R. Where the idea is more complex, a combination of two, tree or four sounds are necessary to express it, but they all originate in the same way. The reader who desires to prove the truth of the theory here put forward can adopt either of two methods; he can apply the correspondences to the roots, or he may try for himself to create words expressing simple, elemental ideas by combining the necessary letters; and then, if he turns to the roots, he will probably find that many of the words he has created in this way were actually used long ago, and this pratice will enable him more easily to understand in what sense, or on what plane, any particular letter should be taken. I think it probably that in the Sacred Language before mentioned, this could at once have been recognized by a difference in the intonation of the voice. This may have been a survival to some extent of the chanting which was the distinguishing characteristic of the speech of the Second Race. (Secret Doctrine, vol. II, p. 198) In the written language it is not easily possible to discover this without much thought, unless endeavour has previously been made to re-awaken the faculty of intuitive speech, which we formerly possessed and which became atrophied.

It is not possible here to go into the analysis of the roots at much length: I can only illustrate the method which will be found to apply more surely where the roots express most elemental conceptions. Let us take as example the root, Wal, to boil. Boiling is brought about by the action of fire upon water, and here we find the letters W, water, and L, light or fire, united. In War, to well up as a spring, the sounds for water and motion are combined. A similar idea is expressed in Wat, to well out; the abstract significance of T, which is to evolve, come forth or appear, being here applied to a special action. A good method to follow in order to understand how the pure abstract meaning of a letter may be applied in many different ways, is to take some of the roots in which any one letter is prominent and then compare them. Let us take D. It has an abstract relation to involution or infusion; it may be view in two ways, either as positive or negative; as the exertion of force or the reception of force. Now I think if we compare the following roots a similarity of action will be found to underlie them all. Id, to swell; Ad, to eat; Dhu, to put; Da, to bind; Ad, to smell; Du, to enter; Da, to suck.

I am not here going exhaustively to analyse the roots, as this is not an essay upon philology, but an attempt to make clear some of the mysteries of sound; those who wish to study this side of the subject more fully can study with this light the primitive languages. A few more examples must suffice. The root, Mar, to die, may be variously interpreted as the end of motion, the cessation of breath, or the withdrawal of spirit, R being expressive of what on various planes is motion, spirit, air and breath. In Bur, to be active, life and movement are combined,: in Gla, to glow, reflection and light; the same idea is in Gol, a lake. We find combined in Kar, to grind, hardness and motion: in Thah, to generate, expansion and heat; in Pak, to comb, division and hardness, the suggestion being division with some hard object; the same idea is in Pik, to cut. In Pis, to pound, the letters for division and matter in its molecular state are combined: in Fath, to fly, lightness and expansion: in Yas, to gird, drawing together and number; in Rab, to be vehement, energy and life; in Rip, to break, energy and division. In Yudh, to fight, the meaning suggested may be, coming together to destroy. Without further analysis the reader will be able to detect the relation which the abstractions corresponding to each letter bear to the defined application in the following words. Ak, to be sharp; Ank, to bend; Idh, to kindle; Ar, to move; Al, to burn; Ka, to sharpen; Har, to burn; Ku, to hew; Sa, to produce; Gal, to be yellow or green; Ghar, to be yellow or green; Thak, to thaw; Tar, to go through; Thu, to swell; Dak, to bite; Nak, to perish; Pa, to nourish, to feed; Par, to spare; Pi, to swell, to be fat; Pu, to purify; Pu, to beget; pau, little; Put, to swell out; Flu, to fly, to float; Bar, to carry; Bhu, to be, to become; Bla, to blow as a flower; Ma, to think; Mak, to pound; Mi, to diminish; Mu, to shut up, to enclose; Yas, to seethe, to ferment; Ys, to bind together, to mix; Yuk, to yoke, to join; Ra, to love; Rik, to furrow; Luh, to shine; Rud, to redden, to be red; Lub, to lust [?]; Lu, to cast off from; Wag, to be moist; Wam, to spit out; So, to sow, to scatter; Sak, to cut, to cleave; Su, to generate; Swa, to toss; Swal, to boil up; Ska, to cut; Skap, to hew; Sniw, to snow; Spew, to spit out; Swid, to sweat; etc. An analysis of some sacred words and the names of Deities may now prove interesting.

It has been said that before we can properly understand the character of any deity we would have to know the meaning and the numbers attached to each letter in the name, for in this way the powers and functons of the various gods were indicated. If we take as examples names familiar to everyone, Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra, the three aspects of Parabrahm in manifestation, and analyse them in the same way as the roots, they will be found to yield up their essential meaning. Form the union of B, life, R, breath, and Ma, the producer, I would translate Brahma as "the creative breath of life." Vishnu similarly analysed is the power that "pervades, expands, and preserves;" I infer this from the union of V, whose force is pervasion, Sh, expansion, and N, continuation. Rudra is "the breath that absorbs the breath." Aum is the most sacred name of all names; it is held to symbolize the action of the Great breath from its dawn to its close: it is the beginning, A, the middle, U, and the close M. It is also an affirmation of the relation of our spiritual nature to the universal Deity whose aspects are Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra. I shall have more to say of the occult power of this word later on. Taken in conjunction with two other words, it is "the threefold designation of the Supreme Being." Om Tat Sat has a significance referable to a still higher aspect of Deity than that other Trinity; the Om here signifies that it is the All; Tat that it is self-existent or self-evolved; I think the repetition of the T in Tat gives it this meaning: Sat would signify that in it are contained the seeds of all manifestation. H.P. Blavatsky translates this word as Be-ness, which seems to be another way of expressing the same idea. The mystic incantation familiar to all students of the Upanishads, Om, bhur, Om, Bhwar, Om, Svar," is an assertion of the existence of the Divine Self in all the three worlds or Lokas. Loka is generally translated as a place; the letters suggest to me that a place or world is only a hardening or crystalization of Fire or Light. In Bhur Loka the crystalization of the primordial element of Fire leaves only one principle active, the life principle generally called Prana. Bhur Loka then is the place where life is active; we have B, life, and R, movement, to suggest this. In the word Bhuvar a new letter, V, is inserted: this letter, as I have said, corresponds to the Astral world, so the Bhuvar Loka is the place where both the Astral and Life principles are active. It is more difficult to translate Svar Loka: there is some significance attached here to the letter S, which I cannot grasp. It might mean that this world contains the germs of Astral life; but this does not appear sufficiently distinctive, Svar Loka is generally known as Devachan, and the whole incantation would mean that the Deity is present throughout the Pranic, Astral and Devachanic worlds. It is interesting to note what is said in the Glossary by H.P.B., about these three words (p. 367): they are said to be "lit by and born of fire," and to possess creative powers. The repetition of them with the proper accent should awaken in the occultist the powers which correspond to the three worlds. I think by these examples that the student will be able to get closer to the true significance of incantation; those who understand the occult meaning of the colours attached to the letters will be able to penetrate deeper than others into these mysteries.

I may here say something about the general philosophy of incantation. There is said to be in nature a homogenous sound or tone which everywhere stirs up the molecules into activity. This is the "Word" which St. John says was in the beginning (the plane of causation); in another sense it is the Akasa of occult science, the element of sound, it is the Pythagorean "music of the spheres." The universe is built up, moulded and sustained by this element which is everywhere present, though inaudible by most men at this stage of evolution. It is not sound by the physical ears, but deep in the heart sometimes may be heard "the mystic sounds of the Akasic heights." The word Aum represents this homogeneous sound, it stirs up a power which is latent in it called the Yajna. The Glossary says that this "is one of the forms of Akasa within which the mystic word calls it into existence:" it is a bridge by means of which the soul can cross over to the world of the Immortals. It is this which is alluded to in the Nada-Bindu Upanishad. "The mind becoming insensible to the external impressions, becomes one with the sound, as milk with water, and then becomes rapidly absorbed in chidakas (the Akasa where consciousness pervades). The sound..... serves the purpose of a lure to the ocean waves of Chitta (mind), ...the serpent Chitta through listening to the Nada is entirely absorbed in it, and becoming unconscious of everything concentrates itself on the sound." We may quote further from another Upanishad. "Having left behind the body, the organs and objects of sense, and having seized the bow whose stick is fortitude and whose string is asceticism, and having killed with the arrow of freedom from egoism the first guardian, ....he crosses by means of the boat Om to the other side of the ether within the heart, and when the ether is revealed he enters slowly, as a miner seeking minerals enters a mine, into the hall of Brahman. ...Thenceforth, pure, clean, tranquil, breathless, endless, imperishable, firm, unborn, and independent, he stands in his own greatness, and having seen the Self standing in his own greatness, he looks at the wheel of the world."

Let no one think that this is all, and that the mere repetition of words will do anything except injure those who attempt the use of these methods without further knowledge. It has been said (Path, April, 1887) that Charity, Devotion, and the like virtues are structural necessities in the nature of the man who would make this attempt. We cannot, unless the whole nature has been purified by long services and sacrifice, and elevated into mood at once full of reverence and intense will, become sensitive to the subtle powers possessed by the spiritual soul.

What is here said about the Aum which is the name of our own God, and the way in which it draws forth the hidden power will serve to illustrate the method in using other words. The Thara-Sara Upanishad of Sukla-Yajur Veda says "Through Om is Brahm produced: through Na is Vishnu produced; through Ma is Rudra produced, etc." All these are names of gods; they correspond to forces in man and nature, in their use the two are united, and the man mounts upwards to the Immortals.

I have been forced to compress what I had to say in these articles, I have only been able to suggest rather than put forward ideas, for my own knowledge of these correspondences is very incomplete. As far as I know the subject has been untouched hitherto, and this must be my excuse for the meagre nature of the information given. I hope later on to treat of the relation of sound and colour to form and to show how these correspondences will enable us to understand the language which the gods speak to us through flowers, trees, and natural forms. I hope also to be able to show that it was a knowledge of the relation of sound to form which dictated the form of the letters in many primaeval alphabets.

—5/15, 6/15, 7/15, 8/15, 9/15, 1893



At the Dawn of the Kaliyuga *



Where we sat on the hillside together that evening the winds were low and the air was misty with light. The huge sunbrowned slope on which we were sitting was sprinkled over with rare spokes of grass; it ran down into the vagueness underneath where dimly the village could be seen veiled by its tresses of lazy smoke. Beyond was a bluer shade and a deeper depth, out of which, mountain beyond mountain, the sacred heights of Himalay rose up through star-sprinkled zones of silver and sapphire air. How gay were our hearts! The silent joy of the earth quickened their beating. What fairy fancies alternating with the sweetest laughter came from childish lips! In us the Golden Age whispered her last, and departed. Up came the white moon, her rays of dusty pearl slanting across the darkness from the old mountain to our feet. "A bridge!" we cried, "Primaveeta, who long to be a sky-walker, here is a bridge for you!"

Primaveeta only smiled; he was always silent; he looked along the gay leagues of pulsating light that lead out to the radiant mystery. We went on laughing and talking; then Primaveeta broke his silence.

"Vyassa," he said, "I went out in thought, I went into the light, but it was not that light. I felt like a fay; I sparkled with azure and lilac; I went on, and my heart beat with longing for I knew not what, and out and outward I sped till desire stayed and I paused, and the light looked into me full of meaning. I felt like a spark, and the dancing of the sea of joy bore me up, up, up!"

"Primaveeta, who can understand you?" said his little sister Vina, "you always talk of the things no one can see; Vyassa, sing for us."

"Yes! yes! let Vyassa sing!" they all cried; and they shouted and shouted until I began:—

"Shadowy petalled, like the lotus, loom the mountains with their snows: Through the sapphire Soma rising, such a flood of glory throws As when the first in yellow splendour Brahma from the lotus rose.

"High above the darkening mounds where fade the fairy lights of day, All the tiny planet folk are waving us from far away; Thrilled by Brahma's breath they sparkle with the magic of the gay.

"Brahma, all alone in gladness, dreams the joys that throng in space, Shepherds all the whirling splendours onward to their resting place, Where at last in wondrous silence fade in One the starry race."

"Vyassa is just like Primaveeta, he is full of dreams to-night," said Vina. And indeed I was full of dreams; my laughter had all died away; a vague and indescribable unrest came over me; the universal air around seemed thrilled by the stirring of unknown powers. We sat silent awhile; then Primaveeta cried out: "Oh, look, look, look, the Devas! the bright persons! they fill the air with their shining."

We saw them pass by and we were saddened, for they were full of solemn majesty; overhead a chant came from celestial singers full of the agony of farewell and departure, and we knew from their song that the gods were about to leave the earth which would nevermore or for ages witness their coming. The earth and the air around it seemed to tingle with anguish. Shuddering we drew closer together on the hillside while the brightness of the Devas passed onward and away; and clear cold and bright as ever, the eternal constellations, which change or weep not, shone out, and we were alone with our sorrow. To awed we were to speak, but we clung closer together and felt a comfort in each other; and so, crouched in silence; within me I heard as from far away a note of deeper anguish, like a horn blown out of the heart of the ancient Mother over a perished hero: in a dread moment I saw the death and the torment; he was her soul-point, the light she wished to shine among men. What would follow in the dark ages to come, rose up before me in shadowy, over-crowding pictures; like the surf of a giant ocean they fluctuated against the heavens, crested with dim, giantesque and warring figures. I saw stony warriors rushing on to battle; I heard their fierce hard laughter as they rode over the trampled foe; I saw smoke arise from a horrible burning, and thicker and blacker grew the vistas, with here and there a glow from some hero-heart that kept the true light shining within. I turned to Primaveeta who was crouched beside me: he saw with me vision for vision, but, beyond the thick black ages that shut me out from hope, he saw the resurrection of the True, and the homecoming of the gods. All this he told me later, but now our tears were shed together. Then Primaveeta rose up and said, "Vyasa, where the lights were shining, where they fought for the True, there you and I must fight; for, from them spreads out the light of a new day that shall dawn behind the darkness." I saw that he was no longer a dreamer; his face was firm with a great resolve. I could not understand him, but I determined to follow him, to fight for the things he fought for, to work with him, to live with him, to die with him; and so, thinking and trying to understand, my thought drifted back to that sadness of the mother which I had first felt. I saw how we share joy or grief with her, and, seized with the inspiration of her sorrow, I sang about her loved one:—

"Does the earth grow grey with grief For her hero darling fled? Though her vales let fall no leaf, In our hearts her tears are shed.

"Still the stars laugh on above, Not to them her grief is said; Mourning for her hero love In our hearts her tears are shed.

"We her children mourn for him, Mourn the elder hero dead; In the twilight grey and dim In our hearts the tears are shed."

"Vyassa," they said, "you will break our hearts." And we sat in silence and sorrow more complete till we heard weary voices calling up to us from the darkness below: "Primaveeta! Vyassa! Chandra! Parvati! Vina! Vasudeva!" calling all our names. We went down to our homes in the valley; the breadth of glory had passed away from the world, and our hearts were full of the big grief that children hold.

—October 15, 1893

——————— * Note—Kaliyuga. The fourth, the black or iron age, our present period, the duration of which is 432,000 years. It began 3,102 years B.C. at the moment of Krishna's death, and the first cycle of 5,000 years will end between the years 1897 and 1898. ———————



The Meditation of Parvati



Parvata rose up from his seat under the banyan tree. He passed his hand unsteadily over his brow. Throughout the day the young ascetic had been plunged in profound meditation, and now, returning from heaven to earth, he was dazed like one who awakens in darkness and knows not where he is. All day long before his inner eye burned the light of the Lokas, until he was wearied and exhausted with their splendours; space glowed like a diamond with intolerable lustre, and there was no end to the dazzling processions of figures. He had seen the fiery dreams of the dead in Swargam. He had been tormented by the sweet singing of the Gandharvas, whose choral song reflected in its ripples the rhythmic pulse of Being. He saw how the orbs, which held them, were set within luminous orbs still of wider circuit, and vaster and vaster grew the vistas, and smaller seemed the soul at gaze, until at last, a mere speck of life, he bore the burden of innumerable worlds. Seeking for Brahma, he found only the great illusion as infinite as Brahma's being.

If these things were shadows, the earth and the forests he returned to, viewed at evening, seemed still more unreal, the mere dusky flutter of a moth's wings in space. Filmy and evanescent, if he had sunk down as through a transparency into the void, it would not have been wonderful. Parvati turned homeward, still half in trance: as he threaded the dim alleys he noticed not the flaming eyes that regarded him from the gloom; the serpents rustling amid the undergrowths; the lizards, fire-flies, insects, the innumerable lives of which the Indian forest was rumourous; they also were but shadows. He paused half unconsciously at the village, hearing the sound of human voices, of children at play. He felt a throb of pity for these tiny being who struggled and shouted, rolling over each other in ecstasies of joy; the great illusion had indeed devoured them before whom the Devas once were worshipers. Then close beside him he heard a voice; its low tones, its reverence soothed him: there was something akin to his own nature in it; it awakened him fully. A little crowd of five or six people were listening silently to an old man who read from a palm-leaf manuscript. Parvati knew his order by the orange-coloured robes he wore; a Bhikshu of the new faith. What was his delusion?

The old man lifted his head for a moment as the ascetic came closer, and then he continued as before. He was reading the "Legend of the Great King of Glory." Parvati listened to it, comprehending with the swift intuition and subtlety of a mystic the inner meaning of the Wonderful Wheel, the elephant Treasure, the Lake and palace of Righteousness. He followed the speaker, understanding all until he came to the meditation of the King: then he heard with vibrating heart, how "the Great King of Glory entered the golden chamber, and set himself down on the silver couch. And he let his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of Love: and so the second quarter, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above below, around and everywhere, did he continue to pervade with heart of Love, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure." When the old Bhikshu had ended, Parvati rose up, and went back again into the forest. He had found the secret of the True—to leave behind the vistas, and enter into the Being. Another legend rose up in his mind, a fairy legend of righteousness, expanding and filling the universe, a vision beautiful and full of old enchantment; his heart sang within him. He seated himself again under the banyan tree; he rose up in soul; he saw before him images, long-forgotten, of those who suffer in the sorrowful old earth; he saw the desolation and loneliness of old age, the insults to the captive, the misery of the leper and outcast, the chill horror and darkness of life in a dungeon. He drank in all their sorrow. For his heart he went out to them. Love, a fierce and tender flame arose; pity, a breath from the vast; sympathy, born of unity. This triple fire sent forth its rays; they surrounded those dark souls; they pervaded them; they beat down oppression.

While Parvati, with spiritual magic, sent forth the healing powers, far away at that moment, in his hall, a king sat enthroned. A captive was bound before him; bound, but proud, defiant, unconquerable of soul. There was silence in the hall until the king spake the doom, the torture, for this ancient enemy. The king spake: "I had thought to do some fierce thing to thee, and so end thy days, my enemy. But, I remember with sorrow, the great wrongs we have done to each other, and the hearts made sore by our hatred. I shall do no more wrong to thee. Thou art free to depart. Do what thou wilt. I will make restitution to thee as far as may be for thy ruined state." Then the soul no might could conquer was conquered, and the knees were bowed; his pride was overcome. "My brother!" he said, and could say no more.

To watch for years a little narrow slit high up in the dark cell, so high that he could not reach up and look out; and there to see daily a little change from blue to dark in the sky had withered that prisoner's soul. The bitter tears came no more; hardly even sorrow; only a dull, dead feeling. But that day a great groan burst from him: he heard outside the laugh of a child who was playing and gathering flowers under the high, grey walls: then it all came over him, the divine things missed, the light, the glory, and the beauty that the earth puts forth for her children. The narrow slit was darkened: half of a little bronze face appeared.

"Who are you down there in the darkness who sigh so? Are you all alone there? For so many years! Ah, poor man! I would come down to you if I could, but I will sit here and talk to you for a while. Here are flowers for you," and a little arm showered them in handfuls; the room was full of the intoxicating fragrance of summer. Day after day the child came, and the dull heart entered into human love once more.

At twilight, by a deep and wide river, sat an old woman alone, dreamy, and full of memories. The lights of the swift passing boats, and the lights of the stars, were just as in childhood and the old love-time. Old, feeble, it was time for her to hurry away from the place which changed not with her sorrow.

"Do you see our old neighbour there?" said Ayesha to her lover. "They say she once was as beautiful as you would make me think I am now. How lonely she must be! Let us come near and speak to her"; and the lover went gladly. Though they spoke to each other rather than to her, yet something of the past—which never dies when love, the immortal, has pervaded it—rose up again as she heard their voices. She smiled, thinking of years of burning beauty.

A teacher, accompanied by his chelas, was passing by the wayside where a leper was sitting. The teacher said, "Here is our brother whom we may not touch. But he need not be shut out from truth. We may sit down where he can listen." He sat down on the wayside beside the leper, and his chelas stood around him. He spoke words full of love, kindliness, and pity, the eternal truths which make the soul grow full of sweetness and youth. A small old spot began to glow in the heart of the leper, and the tears ran down his withered cheeks.

All these were the deeds of Parvati, the ascetic; and the Watcher who was over him from all eternity made a great stride towards that soul.

—November 15, 1893



A Talk by the Euphrates



Priest Merodach walked with me at evening along the banks of the great river.

"You feel despondent now," he said, "but this was inevitable. You looked for a result equal to your inspiration. You must learn to be content with that alone. Finally an inspiration will come for every moment, and in every action a divine fire reveal itself."

"I feel hopeless now. Why is this? Wish and will are not less strong than before."

"Because you looked for a result beyond yourself, and, attached to external things, your mind drew to itself subtle essences of earth which clouded it. But there is more in it than that. Nature has a rhythm, and that part of us which is compounded of her elements shares in it. You were taught that nature is for ever becoming: the first emanation in the great deep is wisdom: wisdom changes into desire, and an unutterable yearning to go outward darkens the primeval beauty. Lastly, the elements arise, blind, dark, troubled. Nature in them imagines herself into forgetfulness. This rhythm repeats itself in man: a moment of inspiration—wise and clear, we determine; then we are seized with a great desire which impels us to action; the hero, the poet, the lover, all alike listen to the music of life, and then endeavour to express its meaning in word or deed; coming in contact with nature, its lethal influence drowses them; so baffled and forgetful, they wonder where the God is. To these in some moment the old inspiration returns, the universe is as magical and sweet as ever, a new impulse is given, and so they revolve, perverting and using, each one in his own way, the cosmic rhythm."

"Merodach, what you say seems truth, and leaving aside the cosmic rhythm, which I do not comprehend, define again for me the three states."

"You cannot really understand the little apart from the great; but, applying this to your own case, you remember you had a strange experience, a God seemed to awaken within you. This passed away; you halted a little while, full of strange longing, eager for the great; yet you looked without on the hither side of that first moment, and in this second period, which is interchange and transition, your longing drew to you those subtle material essences I spoke of, which, like vapour surround, dull and bewilder the mind with strange phantasies of form and sensation. Every time we think with longing of any object, these essences flow to us out of the invisible spheres and steep us with the dew of matter: then we forget the great, we sleep, we are dead or despondent as you are despondent."

I sighed as I listened. A watchfulness over momentary desires was the first step; I had thought of the tasks of the hero as leading upwards to the Gods, but this sleepless intensity of will working within itself demanded a still greater endurance. I neared my destination; I paused and looked round; a sudden temptation assailed me; the world was fair enough to live in. Why should I toil after the far-off glory? Babylon seemed full of mystery, its temples and palaces steeped in the jewel glow and gloom of evening. In far-up heights of misty magnificence the plates of gold on the temples rayed back the dying light: in the deepening vault a starry sparkle began: an immense hum arose from leagues of populous streets: the scents of many gardens by the river came over me: I was lulled by the splash of fountains. Closer I heard voices and a voice I loved: I listened as a song came

"Tell me, youthful lover, whether Love is joy or woe? Are they gay or sad together On that way who go?"

A voice answered back

"Radiant as a sunlit feather, Pure and proud they go; With the lion look together Glad their faces show."

My sadness departed; I would be among them shortly, and would walk and whisper amid those rich gardens where beautiful idleness was always dreaming. Merodach looked at me.

"You will find these thoughts will hinder you much," he said.

"You mean—" I hesitated, half-bewildered, half-amazed. "I say that a thought such as that which flamed about you just now, driving your sadness away, will recur again when next you are despondent, and so you will accustom yourself to find relief on the great quest by returning to an old habit of the heart, renewing what should be laid aside. This desire of men and women for each other is the strongest tie among the many which bind us: it is the most difficult of all to overcome. The great ones of the earth have passed that way themselves with tears."

"But surely, Merodach, you cannot condemn what I may say is so much a part of our nature—of all nature."

"I did not condemn it, when I said it is the strongest tie that binds us here: it is sin only for those who seek for freedom."

"Merodach, must we then give up love?"

"There are two kinds of love men know of. There is one which begins with a sudden sharp delight—it dies away into infinite tones of sorrow. There is a love which wakes up amid dead things: it is a chill at first, but it takes root, it warms, it expands, it lays hold of universal joys. So the man loves: so the God loves. Those who know this divine love are wise indeed. They love not one or another: they are love itself. Think well over this: power alone is not the attribute of the Gods; there are no such fearful spectres in that great companionship. And now, farewell, we shall meet again."

I watched his departing figure, and then I went on my own way. I longed for that wisdom, which they only acquire who toil, and strive, and suffer; but I was full of a rich life which longed for excitement and fulfilment, and in that great Babylon sin did not declare itself in its true nature, but was still clouded over by the mantle of primeval beauty.

—December 15, 1893



The Cave of Lilith



Out of her cave came the ancient Lilith; Lilith the wise; Lilith the enchantress. There ran a little path outside her dwelling; it wound away among the mountains and glittering peaks, and before the door, one of the Wise Ones walked to and fro. Out of her cave came Lilith, scornful of his solitude, exultant in her wisdom, flaunting her shining and magical beauty.

"Still alone, star gazer! Is thy wisdom of no avail? Thou hast yet to learn that I am more powerful knowing the ways of error than you who know the ways of truth."

The Wise One heeded her not, but walked to and fro. His eyes were turned to the distant peaks, the abode of his brothers. The starlight fell about him; a sweet air came down the mountain path, fluttering his white robe; he did not cease from his steady musing. Like a mist rising between rocks wavered Lilith in her cave. Violet, with silvery gleams her raiment; her face was dim; over her head rayed a shadowy diadem, the something a man imagines over the head of his beloved—-looking closer at her face he would have seen that this was the crown he reached out to, that the eyes burnt with his own longing, that the lips were parted to yield to the secret wishes of his heart.

"Tell me, for I would know, why do you wait so long? I, here in my cave between the valley and the height blind the eyes of all who would pass. Those who by chance go forth to you come back to me again, and but one in ten thousand passes on. My delusions are sweeter to them than truth. I offer every soul its own shadow; I pay them their own price. I have grown rich, though the simple shepards of old gave me birth. Men have made me; the mortals have made me immortal. I rose up like a vapour from their first dreams, and every sigh since then and every laugh remains with me. I am made up of hopes and fears. The subtle princes lay out their plans of conquest in my cave, and there the hero dreams, and there the lovers of all time write in flame their history. I am wise, holding all experience, to tempt, to blind, to terrify. None shall pass by. Why, therefore, dost thou wait?"

The Wise One looked at her and she shrank back a little, and a little her silver and violet faded, but out of her cave her voice still sounded:

"The stars and the starry crown are not yours alone to offer, and every promise you make, I make also. I offer the good and the bad indifferently. The lover, the poet, the mystic, and all who would drink of the first Fountain, I delude with my mirage. I was the Beatrice who led Dante upward: the gloom was in me, and the glory was mine also, and he went not out of my cave. The stars and the shining of heaven were delusions of the infinite I wove about him. I captured his soul with the shadow of space; a nutshell would have contained the film. I smote on the dim heart-chords the manifold music of being. God is sweeter in the human than the human in God: therefore he rested in me."

She paused a little, and then went on.

"There is that fantastic fellow who slipped by me—could your wisdom not keep him? He returned to me full of anguish, and I wound my arms round him like a fair melancholy, and now his sadness is as sweet to him as hope was before his fall. Listen to his song." She paused again. A voice came up from the depths chanting a sad knowledge—

"What of all the will to do? It has vanished long ago, For a dream shaft pierced it through From the unknown Archer's bow.

What of all the soul to think? Some one offered it a cup Filled with a diviner drink, And the flame has burned it up.

What of all the hope to climb? Only in the self we grope To the misty end of time; Truth has put an end to hope.

What of all the heart to love? Sadder than for will or soul, No light lured it on above; Love has found itself the whole."

"Is it not pitiful? I pity only those who pity themselves. Yet he is mine more surely than ever. This is the end of human wisdom. How shall he now escape? What shall draw him up?"

"His will shall awaken," said the Wise One. "I do not sorrow over him, for long is the darkness before the spirit is born. He learns in your caves not to see, not to hear, not to think, for very anguish flying your delusions."

"Sorrow is a great bond," Lilith said.

"It is a bond to the object of sorrow. He weeps what thou can never give him, a life never breathed in thee. He shall come forth, and thou shalt not see him at the time of passing. When desire dies, will awakens, the swift, the invisible. He shall go forth, and one by one the dwellers in your caves will awaken and pass onwards; this small old path will be trodden by generation after generation. You, too, oh, shining Lilith, will follow, not as mistress, but as hand-maiden."

"I shall weave spells," Lilith cried. "They shall never pass me. With the sweetest poison I will drug them. They will rest drowsily and content as of old. Were they not giants long ago, mighty men and heroes? I overcame them with young enchantment. Will they pass by feeble and longing for bygone joys, for the sins of their proud exultant youth, while I have grown into a myriad wisdom?"

The Wise One walked to and fro as before, and there was silence, and I thought I saw that with steady will he pierced the tumultuous gloom of the cave, and a heart was touched here and there in its blindness. And I thought I saw that Sad Singer become filled with a new longing to be, and that the delusions of good and evil fell from him, and that he came at last to the knees of the Wise One to learn the supreme truth. In the misty midnight I hear these three voices, the Sad Singer, the Enchantress Lilith, and the Wise One. From the Sad Singer I learned that thought of itself leads nowhere, but blows the perfume from every flower, and cuts the flower from every tree, and hews down every tree from the valley, and in the end goes to and fro in waste places gnawing itself in a last hunger. I learned from Lilith that we weave our own enchantment, and bind ourselves with out own imagination; to think of the true as beyond us, or to love the symbol of being, is to darken the path to wisdom, and to debar us from eternal beauty. From the Wise One I learned that the truest wisdom is to wait, to work, and to will in secret; those who are voiceless today, tomorrow shall be eloquent, and the earth shall hear them, and her children salute them. Of these three truths the hardest to learn is the silent will. Let us seek for the highest truth.

—February 15, 1894



A Strange Awakening



Chapter I.

That we are living in the Dark Age we all know, yet we do not realise half its darkness. We endure physical and moral suffering; but, fortunately or unfortunately, we are oblivious of the sorrow of all sorrows—the Spiritual Tragedy. Such a rust has come over the pure and ancient spirit of life, that the sceptre and the diadem and the starry sway we held are unremembered; and if anyone speaks of these things he is looked at strangely with blank eyes, or with eyes that suspect madness. I do not know whether to call him great, or pity him, who feels such anguish; for although it is the true agony of the crucifixion, it is only gods who are so martyred. With these rare souls memory is not born: life flows on, and they with it go on in dreams: they are lulled by lights, flowers, stars, colours, and sweet odours, and are sheltered awhile from heaven and hell; then in some moment the bubble bursts, and the god awakens and knows himself, and he rises again with giant strength to conquer; or else he succumbs, and the waves of Lethe, perhaps in mercy, blot out his brief knowledge.

I knew such an one many years ago, and I tell of him because I know of no deeper proof of the existence of a diviner nature than that man's story. Arthur Harvey, as I have heard people describe him, in his early years was gentle, shy, and given to much dreaming. He was taken from school early, came up from the country to the city, and was put to business. He possessed the apathy and unresisting nature characteristic of so many spiritual people, and which is found notably among the natives of India; so he took his daily confinement at first as a matter of course, though glad enough when it was over, and the keen sweet air blew about him in spring or summer evenings, and the earth looked visionary, steeped in dew and lovely colour, and his soul grew rich with strange memories and psychic sensations. And so day-by-day he might have gone on with the alternation of work and dream, and the soul in its imaginings might never have known of the labours of the mind, each working by habit in its accustomed hour, but for an incident which took place about two years after his going to business.

One morning his manager said: "Harvey, take this letter; deliver it, and wait for an answer." He started up eagerly, glad for the unwonted freedom from his desk. At the door, as he went out, the whole blinding glory of the sunlight was dashed on him. He looked up. Ah! what spaces illimitable of lustrous blue. How far off! How mighty! He felt suddenly faint, small, mean, and feeble. His limbs trembled under him: he shrank from the notice of men as he went on his way. Vastness, such as this, breaking in upon the eye that had followed the point of the pen, unnerved him: he felt a bitter self-contempt. What place had he amid these huge energies? The city deafened him as with one shout: the tread of the multitude; the mob of vehicles; glitter and shadow; rattle, roar, and dust; the black smoke curled in the air; higher up the snowy and brilliant clouds, which the tall winds bore along; all were but the intricate and wondrous workings of a single monstrous personality; a rival in the universe who had absorbed and wrested from him his own divine dower. Out of him; out of him, the power— the free, the fearless—whirled in play, and drove the suns and stars in their orbits, and sped the earth through light and shadow. Out of him; out of him; never to be reconquered; never to be regained. The exultant laugh of the day; the flame of summer; the gigantic winds careering over the city; the far-off divine things filled him with unutterable despair. What was he amid it all? A spark decaying in its socket; a little hot dust clinging together.

He found himself in a small square; he sat down on a bench; his brain burning, his eyes unseeing.

"Oh! my, what's he piping over?" jeered a grotesque voice, and a small figure disappeared, turning somersaults among the bushes.

"Poor young man! Perhaps he is ill. Are you not well, sir?" asked a sympathetic nurse.

He started up, brought to himself, and muttering something unintelligible, continued his journey through the city. The terrible influence departed, and a new change came over him. The laugh of the urchin rankled in his mind: he hated notice: there must be something absurd or out of the common in his appearance to invoke it. He knew suddenly that there was a gulf between him and the people he lived among. They were vivid, actual, suited to their places. How he envied them! Then the whole superficies of his mind became filled with a desire to conceal this difference. He recalled the various characteristics of those who worked along with him. One knew all topical songs, slang and phrases; another affected a smartness in dress; a third discussed theatres with semi-professional knowledge. Harvey, however, could never have entered the world, or lived in it, if he had first to pass through the portals of such ideas! He delivered his letter; he was wearied out, and as he returned he noticed neither sky nor sunlight, and the hurrying multitudes were indifferent and without character. He passed through them; his mind dull like theirs; a mere machine to guide rapid footsteps.

That evening, a clerk named Whittaker, a little his senior in the office, was struck by Harvey's curious and delicate face.

"I say, Harvey," he said, "how do you spend your evenings?"

Harvey flushed a little at the unwonted interest.

"I take long walks," he said.

"Do you read much?"

"A little."

"Do you go to the theatre?"

"No."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Whew! what a queer fellow! No clubs, classes, music-halls— anything of the sort, eh?"

"No," said Harvey, a little bitterly, "I know nothing, nobody; I am always alone."

"What an extraordinary life! Why, you are out of the universe completely. I say," he added, "come along with me this evening. I will initiate you a little. You know you must learn your profession as a human being."

His manner was very kindly; still Harvey was so shy that he would have found some excuse, but for that chance expression, "out of the universe." Was not this apartness the very thing he had just been bitterly feeling? While he hesitated and stammered in his awkwardness, the other said: "There, no excuses! You need not go to your lodgings for tea. Come along with me."

They went off together through the darkening streets. One cheerful and irreverent, brimful of remark or criticism; the other silent, his usual dreaminess was modified, but had not departed, and once, gazing up through the clear, dark blue, where the stars were shining, he had a momentary sense as if he were suspended from them by a fine invisible thread, as a spider hung from her roof; suspended from on high, where the pure and ancient aether flamed around the habituations of eternity; and below and about him, the thoughts of demons, the smoke, darkness, horror and anguish of the pit.



Chapter II.



I Cannot tell all the steps by which the young soul came forth from its clouds and dreams, but must hurry over the years. This single incident of his boyhood I have told to mark the character and tendency of his development; spirituality made self-conscious only in departing; life, a falling from ideals which grew greater, more beautiful and luminous as the possibility of realizing them died away. But this ebbtide of inner life was not regular and incessant, but rather after the fashion of waves which retreat surely indeed, but returning again and again, seem for moments to regain almost more than their past altitude. His life was a series of such falls and such awakenings. Every new experience which drew his soul from its quietude brought with it a revelation of a spiritual past, in which, as it now seemed, he had been living unconsciously. Every new experience which enriched his mind seemed to leave his soul more barren. The pathetic anguish of these moments had little of the moral element, which was dormant and uncultivated rather than perverted. He did not ponder over their moral aspect, for he shared the superficial dislike to the ethical, which we often see in purely artistic natures, who cannot endure the entrance of restraint or pain upon their beauty. His greatest lack was the companionship of fine men or noble women. He had shot up far beyond the reach of those whom he knew, and wanting this companionship he grew into a cynical or sensuous way of regarding them. He began to write: he had acquired the faculty of vigourous expression by means of such emotions as were tinged with a mystical voluptuousness which was the other pole to his inner, secret and spiritual being. The double strain upon his energies, which daily work and nightly study with mental productiveness involved, acted injuriously upon his health, and after a year he became so delicate that he could carry on neither one nor other of his avocations without an interval of complete rest. Obtaining leave from his employers, he went back for a period of six weeks to the village where he had been born. Here in the early summer and sunshine his health rapidly improved; his mind even more than his body drank deep draughts of life; and here, more than at any period in his life, did his imagination begin to deal with mighty things, and probe into the secret mysteries of life, and here passed into the long descended line by which the human spirit passed from empire; he began to comprehend dimly by what decadence from starry state the soul of man is ushered into the great visible life. These things came to him not clearly as ideas, but rather as shadowy and shining vision thrown across the air of dawn of twilight as he moved about.

Not alone did this opulence of spiritual life make him happy, another cause conspired with it to this end. He had met a nature somewhat akin to his own: Olive Rayne, the woman of his life.

As the days passed over he grew eager not to lose any chance of speech with her, and but two days before his departure he walked to the village hoping to see her. Down the quiet English lane in the evening he passed with the rapid feet that bear onward unquiet or feverish thought. The clear fresh air communicated delight to him; the fields grown dim, the voice of the cuckoo, the moon like a yellow globe cut in the blue, the cattle like great red shadows driven homeward with much unnecessary clamour by the children; all these flashed in upon him and became part of him: ready made accessories and backgrounds to his dreams, their quietness stilled and soothed the troubled beauty of passion. His pace lessened as he came near the village, half wondering what would serve as excuse for visits following one so soon upon the other. Chance served as excuse. He saw her grey dress, her firm upright figure coming out from among the lilac brushes at the gate of her father's house. She saw Harvey coming towards her and waited for him with a pleasant smile. Harvey, accustomed to introspect and ideal imaginings, here encountered no shock gazing upon the external. Some last light of day reflected upward from the white gate-post, irradiated her face, and touched with gold the delicate brown hair, the nosrtils, lips, chin, and the lilac of her throat. Her features were clear-cut, flawless; the expression exquisitely grave and pure; the large grey eyes had that steady glow which shows a firm and undisturbed will. In some undefinable way he found himself thinking of the vague objects of his dreams, delicate and subtle things, dew, starlight, and transparencies rose up by some affinity. He rejected them—not those—then a strong warrior with a look of pity on his face appeared and disappeared: all this quick as a flash before she spoke.

"I am going doctoring," she said. "Old nurse Winder is ill, and my father will not be back until late." Mr. Rayne was the country doctor.

"May I go with you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, why not? But I have first to call at two or three places on the way."

He went with her. He was full of wonder at her. How could she come out of her own world of aspiration and mystic religion and show such perfect familiarity, ease and interest in dealing with these sordid village complaints, moral and physical? Harvey was a man who disliked things like these which did not touch his sense of beauty. He could not speak to these people as she did: he could not sympathize with them. The pain of the old woman made him shrink into himself almost with more disgust than pity. While Olive was bending over her tenderly and compassionately, he tried to imagine what it was inspired such actions and such self-forgetfulness. Almost it seemed for a moment to him as if some hidden will in the universe would not let beauty rest in its own sphere, but bowed it down among sorrows continually. He felt a feeling of relief as they came out agin into the night.

It was a night of miracle and wonder. Withdrawn far aloft into fairy altitudes, the stars danced with a gaiety which was more tremendous and solemn than any repose. The night was wrought out of a profusion of delicate fires. The grass, trees, and fields glowed with the dusky colours of rich pottery. Everywhere silence; everywhere the exultant breathing of life, subtle, universal, penetrating. Into the charmed heart fell the enchantment we call ancient, though the days have no fellows, nor will ever have any. Harvey, filled up with this wonder, turned to his companion.

"See how the Magician of the Beautiful blows with his mystic breath upon the world! How tremulous the lights are; what still ness! How it banishes the memory of pain!"

"Can you forget pain so easily? I hardly noticed the night—it is wonderful indeed. But the anguish it covers and enfolds everywhere I cannot forget."

"I could not bear to think of pain at any time, still less while these miracles are over and around us. You seem to me almost to seek pain like a lover. I cannot understand you. How can you bear the ugly, the mean, the sordid—the anguish which you meet. You— so beautiful?"

"Can you not understand?" she said, almost impetuously. "Have you never felt pity as universal as the light that floods the world? To me a pity seems to come dropping, dropping, dropping from that old sky, upon the earth and its anguish. God is not indifferent. Love eternal encircles us. Its wishes are for our redemption. Its movements are like the ripples starting from the rim of a pond that overcome the outgoing ripples and restore all to peace.

"But what is pain if there is this love?" asked Harvey.

"Ah, how can I answer you? Yet I think it is the triumph of love pushing back sin and rebellion. The cry of this old nature being overcome is pain. And this is universal, and goes on everywhere, through we cannot comprehend it; and so, when we yield to this divine love, and accept the change, we find in pain a secret sweetness. It is the first thrill that heralds an immense dawn."

"But why do you say it is universal? Is not that a frightful thought?"

"If God is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, then the life of Christ on earth was a symbol—must be a symbol—of what endures for ever: the Light and Darkness for ever in conflict: a crucifixion in eternity."

This belief, so terrible, so pathetic, so strange, coming from this young girl affected Harvey profoundly. He did not reject it. The firmness and surety of her utterance, the moral purity of her character, appealed to him who felt his own lack of clear belief and heroic purpose. Like all spiritual people, he assimilated easily the spiritual moods of those whom he came into contact with. Coming from her, the moral, pathetic, and Christian doctrine had that element of beauty which made it blend with his ideal paganism. As he went homewards he pondered over her words, her life, her thoughts. He began to find an inexpressible beauty in her pity, as a feeling welling up from unknown depths, out of the ancient heart of things. Filled with this pity he could overcome his dislike of pain and go forth as the strong warrior of his momentary vision. He found himself repeating again and again her words: "We find in pain a secret sweetness—a secret sweetness—a secret sweetness." If he could only find it, what might he not dare, to what might he not attain? And revolving all these things upon his restless pillow, there came over him one of those mystic moods I have spoken of: wandering among dim originals, half in dream and half in trance, there was unfolded within him this ancient legend of the soul:—

There was a great Gloom and a great Glory in nature, and the legions of darkness and the glorious hosts were at war perpetually with one another. Then the Ancient of Days, who holds all this within himself, moved the Gloom and the Glory together: the Sons of the Bright Fire he sent into the darkness, and the children of Darkness he brought unto the gates of the day. And in the new life formed out of the union of these two, pain, self-conscious, became touched with a spiritual beauty, and those who were of the Hosts of Beauty wore each one a Crown of Thorns upon the brow.



Chapter III.

Harvey rose up early; as he walked to and fro in the white dawn, he found the answers to every question in his mind: they rose up with a sweet and joyful spontaneity. Life became filled with happiest meaning: a light from behind the veil fell upon the things he had before disliked, and in this new light, pain, sorrow, and the old moralities were invested with a significance undreamt of before. In admitting into his own mind Olive Rayne's ideas, he removed something of their austerity: what he himself rejected, seen in her, added another and peculiar interest to the saintly ideal of her which he had formed. She had once said, peace and rest were inconceivable while there existed strife and suffering in nature. Nowhere could there be found refuge; drawing near unto the divine, this pain only became wider, more intense, almost insufferable, feeling and assimilating the vastness of divine sorrow brooding over the unreclaimed deep. This pity, this consciousness of pain, not her own, filling her own, filling her life, marked her out from everyone he knew. She seemed to him as one consecrated. Then this lover in his mystic passion passed in the contemplation of his well-beloved from the earthly to the invisible soul. He saw behind and around her a form unseen by others; a form, spiritual, pathetic, of unimaginable beauty, on which the eternal powers kept watch, which they nourished with their own life, and on which they inflicted their own pain. This form was crowned, but with a keen- pointed radiance from which there fell a shadowy dropping. As he walked to and fro in the white dawn he made for her a song, and inscribed it.