He became aware that the world held powers, gentle yet immense, that were urging him in directions hitherto undreamed of. With such a fairy guide he might find—he was already finding—not merely safety-valves of expression, but an outlet into the bargain for his creative imagination.
‘And a little child shall lead them,’ he murmured in his beard, as he went slowly down the passage to his room to dress for dinner. Again he felt like singing.
CHAPTER XVIII
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others
only a green thing standing in the way.—W.B.
Thus, gradually, the grey house under the hills changed into a palace; the garden stretched to include the stars; and Paul, the retired Wood Cruiser, walked in a world all new and brilliant. For to find the means of self-expression is to build the foundations of spiritual health, and an ideal companionship, unvexed by limitations of sense, holds potentialities that can change earth into heaven. His accumulated stores of imagination found wings, and he wrote a series of Aventures that delighted his audience while they healed his own soul.
‘I wish they’d go on for ever and ever,’ observed Toby solemnly to her brother. ‘Perhaps they do really, only——’
‘Of course they do,’ Jonah said decisively, ‘but Uncle Paul only tells bits of them to us—bits that you can understand.’
Toby was too much in earnest to notice the masculine scorn.
‘He does know a lot, doesn’t he?’ she said. ‘Do you think he sees up into heaven? They’re not a bit like made-up aventures.’ She paused, deeply puzzled; very grave indeed.