"Father,"I said,"forgive me,but how am I to know surely that this also is not a part of the lovely dream in which I am now walking with thyself?""Thou doubtest because thou lovest the truth.Some would willingly believe life but a phantasm,if only it might for ever afford them a world of pleasant dreams:thou art not of such!Be content for a while not to know surely.The hour will come,and that ere long,when,being true,thou shalt behold the very truth,and doubt will be for ever dead.Scarce,then,wilt thou be able to recall the features of the phantom.Thou wilt then know that which thou canst not now dream.Thou hast not yet looked the Truth in the face,hast as yet at best but seen him through a cloud.That which thou seest not,and never didst see save in a glass darkly--that which,indeed,never can be known save by its innate splendour shining straight into pure eyes--that thou canst not but doubt,and art blameless in doubting until thou seest it face to face,when thou wilt no longer be able to doubt it.But to him who has once seen even a shadow only of the truth,and,even but hoping he has seen it when it is present no longer,tries to obey it--to him the real vision,the Truth himself,will come,and depart no more,but abide with him for ever.""I think I see,father,"I said;"I think I understand.""Then remember,and recall.Trials yet await thee,heavy,of a nature thou knowest not now.Remember the things thou hast seen.
Truly thou knowest not those things,but thou knowest what they have seemed,what they have meant to thee!Remember also the things thou shalt yet see.Truth is all in all;and the truth of things lies,at once hid and revealed,in their seeming.""How can that be,father?"I said,and raised my eyes with the question;for I had been listening with downbent head,aware of nothing but the voice of Adam.
He was gone;in my ears was nought but the sounding silence of the swift-flowing waters.I stretched forth my hands to find him,but no answering touch met their seeking.I was alone--alone in the land of dreams!To myself I seemed wide awake,but I believed I was in a dream,because he had told me so.
Even in a dream,however,the dreamer must do something!he cannot sit down and refuse to stir until the dream grow weary of him and depart:I took up my wandering,and went on.
Many channels I crossed,and came to a wider space of rock;there,dreaming I was weary,I laid myself down,and longed to be awake.
I was about to rise and resume my journey,when I discovered that Ilay beside a pit in the rock,whose mouth was like that of a grave.
It was deep and dark;I could see no bottom.
Now in the dreams of my childhood I had found that a fall invariably woke me,and would,therefore,when desiring to discontinue a dream,seek some eminence whence to cast myself down that I might wake:with one glance at the peaceful heavens,and one at the rushing waters,I rolled myself over the edge of the pit.
For a moment consciousness left me.When it returned,I stood in the garret of my own house,in the little wooden chamber of the cowl and the mirror.
Unspeakable despair,hopelessness blank and dreary,invaded me with the knowledge:between me and my Lona lay an abyss impassable!stretched a distance no chain could measure!Space and Time and Mode of Being,as with walls of adamant unscalable,impenetrable,shut me in from that gulf!True,it might yet be in my power to pass again through the door of light,and journey back to the chamber of the dead;and if so,I was parted from that chamber only by a wide heath,and by the pale,starry night betwixt me and the sun,which alone could open for me the mirror-door,and was now far away on the other side of the world!but an immeasurably wider gulf sank between us in this--that she was asleep and I was awake!that I was no longer worthy to share with her that sleep,and could no longer hope to awake from it with her!For truly I was much to blame:Ihad fled from my dream!The dream was not of my making,any more than was my life:I ought to have seen it to the end!and in fleeing from it,I had left the holy sleep itself behind me!--I would go back to Adam,tell him the truth,and bow to his decree!
I crept to my chamber,threw myself on my bed,and passed a dreamless night.
I rose,and listlessly sought the library.On the way I met no one;the house seemed dead.I sat down with a book to await the noontide:not a sentence could I understand!The mutilated manuscript offered itself from the masked door:the sight of it sickened me;what to me was the princess with her devilry!
I rose and looked out of a window.It was a brilliant morning.With a great rush the fountain shot high,and fell roaring back.The sun sat in its feathery top.Not a bird sang,not a creature was to be seen.Raven nor librarian came near me.The world was dead about me.I took another book,sat down again,and went on waiting.
Noon was near.I went up the stairs to the dumb,shadowy roof.Iclosed behind me the door into the wooden chamber,and turned to open the door out of a dreary world.
I left the chamber with a heart of stone.Do what I might,all was fruitless.I pulled the chains;adjusted and re-adjusted the hood;arranged and re-arranged the mirrors;no result followed.I waited and waited to give the vision time;it would not come;the mirror stood blank;nothing lay in its dim old depth but the mirror opposite and my haggard face.
I went back to the library.There the books were hateful to me--for I had once loved them.
That night I lay awake from down-lying to uprising,and the next day renewed my endeavours with the mystic door.But all was yet in vain.How the hours went I cannot think.No one came nigh me;not a sound from the house below entered my ears.Not once did I feel weary--only desolate,drearily desolate.
I passed a second sleepless night.In the morning I went for the last time to the chamber in the roof,and for the last time sought an open door:there was none.My heart died within me.I had lost my Lona!
Was she anywhere?had she ever been,save in the mouldering cells of my brain?"I must die one day,"I thought,"and then,straight from my death-bed,I will set out to find her!If she is not,Iwill go to the Father and say--`Even thou canst not help me:let me cease,I pray thee!'"
