When he had finished the little introduction he closed the book and laid it upon the grass beside him. Nothing he had ever read, he thought, called up more vividly the impression, the very sound and smell of life out of doors. In each word was an exquisite suggestion of nature, of the open air, of the trees and green grass, and the cool shallow stream up which Socrates and Phaedrus had walked. The spirits that had haunted the bank under the plane-tree seemed now to haunt the pages of the dialogue. And indeed, as though magically changed, the elm above him had suddenly become a plane-tree. Nay! he could hear, actually hear, the trickle of the stream—could hear the chirping of the grasshoppers. And Phaedrus and Socrates!—yes, Phaedrus and Socrates were talking still: if he listened very intently he could make out the tones of their voices, even their words—if he closed his eyes he could see them.
‘Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry.—Phaedrus, need we anything more? The prayer I think is enough for me....’
The sounds about him drew farther and farther away as though fading back into dreamland. A clear light, pale green, like a reflection from some deep pool, was in the sky. The whole world was changed, and he seemed to be wandering in a country of gentle streams and meadows, while the green grass was gay with yellow daffodils.
The sunlight slanted lower, falling on the upper windows of the school. Was his dream less real than that soft light, he wondered? Did not both come from somewhere in the clouds? It explained so much; it pushed back, as it were, the horizon. Plato had believed in it. Could it be, then, that there were certain persons—like Plato, like himself—who were actually nearer to the unseen than others were? Surely things came to him, with the scent of flowers, with the sighing of wind, with the splash of the sea! There was a spirit which breathed upon him from the rustling trees and from the grass under his feet.
[VII]
