The intensity of delight is more than they can bear. It brims up and overflows and goes bursting out to all the world. By being able to be their whole selves they have become more closely in touch with the deepest Heart of Nature and nearest the Divine. In that hushed and sacred moment when the ecstasy of life and love is at its highest they have never felt stronger, purer, lighter, nearer the Divine. They have reached deep down to the most elemental part of their nature. And they have soared up highest to the most Divine. But Divine and elemental, spiritual and bodily, seem one. There seems to be nothing bodily which is not spiritual. And nothing elemental which is not Divine.
It is not often that they will attain these culminating heights of spiritual exaltation. Nor will they be able long to remain there. The lark, the eagle, the airman, have all to come to earth again. And they spend most of their lives on the earth. But the lovers will have known what it is to soar. They will have found their wings. They will have seen heaven once, and breathed its air. And all nature, all human relationships, will be for ever after transfigured in heaven's light.
The state of being to which these twain have now arrived is the highest and best in life. This spiritual union of man and woman—this union of their souls which their bodily union has made possible in completeness—is that which of all else has most value. The friendship of men for men and women for women is high up in the scale of being. But it is not at the supreme summit. The holy union of man and woman is higher still, because it is a relation of the whole being of each to the other, and because it brings both into direct and closest contact with the Primal Source of Things, and on the line which points them highest. The relationship satisfies the whole needs of the selves of each and satisfies the urgency of the Heart of Nature.
* * *
So now our Artist will have experienced true spirituality in its highest degree; and having experienced also the most elemental in his nature, he will perforce have come in touch with Nature along her whole range. And his soul being at the finest pitch of sensitiveness, he will be able to appreciate Natural Beauty as never before. And nothing less than natural beauties, and nothing less than these beauties at their best, will in his exalted mood be satisfying to him. He will be driven irresistibly into the open air and the warm sunshine, and to the bosom of Mother-Earth. And there in the blue of heaven and in dreamy clouds; in the wide sea, or in tranquil lakes; in ethereal mountains or in verdant woodlands; in the loveliness of flowers, and in the music of the birds, he will find that which his spirit seeks—that to which his spirit wants to give response. Only there in the open, in the midst of Nature, will he find horizons wide enough, heights high enough, beauties rich enough, for his soul's needs.
The flowers as he looks into them will disclose glories of colour, texture, form, and fragrance he never yet had seen. The comely forms of trees, their varying greenery, and the dancing sunlight on the leaves, will fill him with an intensity of delight that heretofore he had never known. And as once more he goes among his fellow-men he will see them in a newer and a truer light. His contact with them will be easier; his friendships deeper; his certainty of affection surer; and his capacity for entering into every joy and sorrow immeasurably enlarged.
Through his love, our ideal Artist will have been enabled to reach deeper into the Heart of Nature than he had ever reached before, and to feel more intimately at one with her. And being thus in warmest touch with her, Natural Beauty, strong, deep, and delicate as only finest love can disclose, will be revealed to him. Enjoyment of Natural Beauty in its perfection is the prize he will have won.
CHAPTER X
THE NATURE OF NATURE